Reimagining Teacher Retention: Lessons from an International Recruitment Strategy

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One, you have to find creative ways to get talent in your doors, and two, you need to create cultures that foster high employee development and retention outcomes. Today we're going to look at how you can innovate in the talent attraction side of the equation by building a grow your own program. That has a unique lens.

Most grow your own programs involve looking at using the high school student pool or non traditional educator talent pools as a pathway into full time education roles. This conversation adds a bit more texture and we'll talk through how you can leverage international talent pools as a means to fill your ranks.

Dr. Brenda Lewis joining us. [: 00:01:00

During her 25 years in, in the field of education, Dr. Lewis has been an executive level leader at the district level for over 10 years. She served in a variety of roles in education as a para, Para educator, classroom teacher, assistant principal, assistant superintendent, and is currently serving as a superintendent of Fridley's public school district in Minnesota.

Brenda, welcome to the show.

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[00:01:40] Dr. Jim: I'm looking forward to this conversation. I think it's a first of its kind discussion that we've had when we're taking, talking about the topic of grow your, growing your own talent, but with an international lens to it.

he listeners some of the key [: 00:02:00

[00:02:10] Brenda Lewis: When I first entered the field of education in 2000, there were in Minnesota, 800 teaching applications per vacancy, and it was very hard for those of us with elementary education degrees to get in. To the door about 10 years ago, we started to see significant vacancies within hard to fill areas of special education, emotionally, behaviorally, just disturbed autism spectrum disorder, et cetera.

w do we come with innovative [: 00:03:00

Filled with teachers and staff that are highly qualified and really are able to realize the potential of our students.

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Tell us a little bit about some of those early attempts at solving the talent attraction challenges that you put into place in your career.

And what were some of the things that actually ended up working out well?

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If you have a master's, it's a different rate. So for our teachers degree that were really interested in working in special education. That made a lot of sense for them to put in the time to put in the coursework and to make that transition. However, for some of our teachers that had a master's degree already, they still wanted to serve students with special needs.

That made sense too. They got the free tuition, but they didn't make any changes as far as there's trajectory on salary. So that was an area where. That didn't work quite as well as we would have liked to. We netted maybe two or three teachers that would do that. And it's also hard when you're working a full time job already, then you have to do the student teaching elements and so forth.

d was the grow your own. And [: 00:05:00

And for many of our folks in the different bargaining groups that I talked about, it was a bachelor's degree that they had to obtain and then we would pay for their master's. So it was quite a bit of coursework on top of it already. Full time jobs. So trying those helped us a little bit, but not a lot.

We also worked really heavily to recruit parents specifically into paraeducator roles. However, paraeducator roles are six hours a day, they're nine or 10 months a year. You don't get paid over winter break, spring break. So it was hard for our families to make that financial sacrifice for families that were already at that 40 hours a week.

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[00:06:19] Brenda Lewis: The first one was really time to do the coursework. The coursework is pretty intense. It's doable, but it's pretty intense. So you're already working a full time job. Then you have to spend your nights and weekends doing coursework and going to classes. So that was probably the biggest barrier. The second barrier was again, for individuals that were maybe working in a different profession, such as retail, et cetera.

, and [: 00:07:00

So those were really the barriers that coursework and taking pay cuts for folks that were already employed in 40 hour a week.

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[00:07:21] Brenda Lewis: So really, the waking moment for me on the international talent was when we had 30 teaching vacancies within special education and zero applicants. That's when I knew we had to do something and we had to do it now because the other piece with grow your own is it takes a while to get the certified teachers.

do something quick with our [: 00:08:00

[00:08:01] Dr. Jim: That's an important pivot that you made. But even with that pivot, there's some challenges that we'll talk about in a little bit. But before we get to that, I think it's important for you to paint us a picture of the district that you were operating in and maybe even the region and state because that's going to inform some of the decisions that you made from an international perspective as far as grow your own comes.

So share with us a little bit more about the district that you were in.

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And now we have a student. setting for a special education program. So for our district, when I first came [00:09:00] here a year ago, we had, I believe about 10 teaching vacancies and about 13 special education para educator vacancies. And that was in July. And at that time of the year, it's very nerve wracking to have that level of vacancies.

So that is, I had done a very successful international program at my prior school system. And then we started it here right away. Now the international talent this year, for the most part, will arrive on time by the start of the new teacher workshop. Last year, we did a staggered arrival where our talent came as we could get them.

And we worked with staff and substitute teachers to fill in and so forth. So our talent came mostly by the end of November. But we did have to fill in at the beginning and this year we're excited to have them coming on time.

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You have geographic barriers that you have to navigate. You have language and support structure barriers that you have to navigate. So what were the things that you were thinking about from a Minnesota perspective? And what were you in? And how did you bridge those gaps when it came to making the roles attractive, making the region attractive for this international talent pool?

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What you want to embark on. Then secondly, during the screening interview phase, really talking to our talent about what special education looks like in America. So the teachers that we have are experienced, they have master's degrees and doctorate degrees in special education and really understanding what that looks like in America.

What are those behaviors manifest? What does the paperwork look like? So really making sure our candidates truly understand. What that looks like from a climate standpoint, as far as weather, but a climate standpoint also, as far as the challenges that they will face. We also work very diligently on screening our applicants because for the international pool, we do have the, Fortune that many people want to come here to America and they want to come to our school system.

for the best talent. So when [: 00:12:00

We also have a heavy interest and enthusiasm from our teachers union and from our community who stands up. Volunteers to help with getting different items to provision apartments, beds all of those pieces so that when our talent come, they come to apartments that are fully furnished and ready to welcome them.

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And I thought America was great because, [00:13:00] Oh, wow. This place has sugar just laying all over the place. And I took a handful of snow and stuck it in my mouth. And then I realized it wasn't it wasn't sugar. So the snow comment and the weather comment was interesting. I like the the point that you talked about navigating or managing all the logistics.

So people are coming into, fully furnished accommodations. So they don't have to deal with that particular stress, but there's other stresses to both, navigating metro areas, as well as navigating the American workplace. That's probably pretty foreign to Some international candidates.

So tell us about some of those other things that you had to factor in as part of the induction process when talent was coming on board.

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The next day we take them in to get their social security number. We work with them. We have a special onboarding through our human resources because it's different when you use terms with domestic people like HSA VBA, all these terms, high deductible insurance plans. Those are pieces that even some Americans struggle with understanding, let alone when you're brand new to the country.

hen something is awry in the [: 00:15:00

So they very much want to please us. They want to make sure that they know that they're still thankful to be in America. And that was a good learning for me. We had a. physical altercation with a student and the teacher didn't report it. And when the principal talked to the teacher about it, they said, Oh, it's no problem.

It's no problem. But that is a problem for us. So how do we really establish. How they get acclimated and settled here in America. How do we also ensure that they feel belonging in our district? Because we don't want to have them feel like you're just here to fill a position. We want them to feel that we value you.

We love that you're here. We want you to be a part of our community and we want you to stay with us. So we do a variety of life supports as well as really work hard to ensure they're successful in the classroom.

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I'd like you to share a little bit more on how you broke down that tendency culturally. So that it was okay to surface these things.

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I would say, Jim, the number of times that we say you're not in trouble just to reassure that secondly, we do check ins by affinity group with our international talent. And [00:17:00] we actually have our teacher's union there and talk about. What's your reality in the classroom? What are you struggling with?

Where are you seeing that more support is needed? Because I think sometimes it's easier to talk about that if you hear someone else talking about it and just really laying, setting the stage for our Filipino talent. We have a company That we use that all Filipinos, you have to have a Filipino company to be able to get an accredited employer and they go above and beyond for us.

And they come into the meetings as well. And they prep our talent ahead of time. And they say, The friendly team wants to hear what the actual reality is. And they talk about that ahead of time. And then they are also there to help facilitate the conversation, to help us to get to a place where we can all trust and openly talk about it.

to know exactly what's going [: 00:18:00

[00:18:18] Dr. Jim: That's really good foundational context on how you're creating that environment for the employee side, but there's also competencies that need to be developed on the leader side leadership side of the equation. So walk me through or walk us through some of the things that you did from A leadership development perspective that got your leaders better equipped to lead the international talent and how that's different from the leadership development that you did with native talent.

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And then as we onboarded our talent here, just really working side by side with the principals about, there might be some situations where there's conflict with a team member or conflict with a parent. And really, how do we lean in to figure out, is that about. What the conflict is preventing, or is it about race or is it about an accent?

How do we navigate those pieces and really talking about that? And it sounds a little quirky, but it works really well. We actually do a lot of role playing with our administrators about how to have that. Because when you have that conversation in the real moment and you've already practiced that it feels different and it's really helpful.

Another piece [: 00:20:00

I will say, Jim, our environment here, our parents have Fully embraced the international talent, our school board, et cetera. So we have had what I would call very low incidences of adjustment issues that we've had with respect to our international talent. I also think that has to do with the diversity of our domestic talent too.

So it's not new in Fridley to have Filipino teachers. It's not new to have black teachers. They're just from different parts of the world and require a visa to work here.

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I want to loop this [00:21:00] back to something that we started the conversation about and the broader conversations that we have on the show, which is doing a better job at the district level and best practices at the district level that drive teacher retention.

So we've been talking about international talent as part of a grow your own strategy, but how does that fit into, The overall effort of doing a better job of retaining existing teachers and developing them.

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Someone has to cover them. So the reality in our district, the reality and many districts across our state are that our teachers were not getting their planning time. They weren't able to plan their lessons while during the school day, they weren't able to have their [00:22:00] lunch breaks. They weren't able to collaborate with their colleagues.

And what does that lead to burnout? It makes them also have Nervousness are principles too, about what is the morning going to bring? How many unfilled absences am I going to have? And then there's also this piece of when I'm sick and I need to have a sick day, I feel awful because I know there's no one to cover me.

I know my colleagues are going to be stretched even thinner. And anytime that I'm at a meeting with our. or our union leaders, they always say we're full staffed and friendly. And it's so wonderful to hear that because to your point, it's more than about the international program. It's about the morale in our district.

ents unsupervised. And so it [: 00:23:00

[00:23:11] Dr. Jim:

I really like how you brought out the implications of not running at full staff and how that has a cascading effect on the broader team that's there. And it also leads to some unpredictability from a day to day perspective. Now, when I think about that, the solution that you put into place is not a short term fix.

It's actually a longterm fix. So how did you bridge the gap between the short term needs of the moment like preventing burnout? Predictability in the day and build that bridge to this long term solution.

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If there are qualified domestics as simple as that talking about pay rates, you can't pay international talent less than you pay domestic talent. It's against the law. So first getting to the bottom of some of those rhetoric pieces that not necessarily you would hear in our district, but maybe we hear across the nation to talk about that so that our teachers and our staff have those tools about firstly understanding how that works from a legal standpoint.

All right. Secondly, talking about to Jim, a good problem that I had last summer, once we introduced the international talent is people were like when are they going to be here next week? And it was just this whole thought of, I couldn't get them here fast enough. And people understanding how long it takes about 12 to 16 weeks to get the talent.

mentoring standpoint? How do [: 00:25:00

And she's Filipino and one of her teacher teammates is also Filipino. And do you know that team helped provision her apartment? They had Filipino food for her. The teacher's mom connected her with all of these Groups and community organizations for the Filipino individuals here to network and the team physically came to the airport, picked her up, got her settled with her son.

we do that across the board [: 00:26:00

And what we've gotten to now is we're even at a point where we've asked our domestic staff members, Hey, do you want to host an international talent, consider it the same as you would do a lease. And so there's different ways that we are bringing our talent here to immerse them into our community.

And our domestic talent will tell you so much. Thank you. I was skeptical at first about the international talent, but I see they're just like us, or I've learned this from them. Unless you pulled teachers here that were here based on visa status, you wouldn't know domestic from international.

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It's not, we're not talking about a scale issue [00:27:00] as far as being able to support this, but one thing that I am thinking about is let's pretend you're a rural district that doesn't have a metro area around them. How would you pull this off in a rural district where there isn't proximity to all of these external resources?

I would imagine that a rural superintendent is probably thinking that wouldn't work in our district because of X, Y and Z. So what's your lens on having this be? Applied to that sort of context versus an urban or suburban context.

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For some districts, it works for our international talent to actually get on the school buses and help supervise. So that's a component where they ride to work with the [00:28:00] students and they ride home and that's an extra supervision piece. Another piece is we do carpooling. And they pay the domestic staff that are driving them just as you would an Uber, but we stand it up that way.

Another piece is housing. Housing is a challenge. So really looking at, firstly, what is the school that you want them to, which school do you want them to work at? Because in those rural districts, there can be 40 miles between two different schools. So what school are they working at? And how do we find A landlord or a rental situation where the landlord is understanding because sometimes in rural places, the landlords are a little different about accepting foreign individuals to come in to rent from them.

ctually a legal practice. So [: 00:29:00

Hey, did you, do you have a room? Do you, are you maybe an empty nester? And you can rent out a room to an international talent. We also, I work with those districts on having them get their driver's license right away. And then helping them with not financially, but how to qualify for a loan, how to lease a car, how to maybe buy a car with their first four or five paychecks that they've saved up that gets them to their next car.

So how do we do that differently? Also groceries. How do we work in a rural environment where there are no West African grocery stores? How do we connect them then so that maybe they can do monthly deliveries from an African shop that gets delivered to their homes. Also, frankly, Jim, the racism is a lot higher in the rural communities as well.

sely with superintendents on [: 00:30:00

We aren't taking jobs away from Americans, explaining the department of labor role, explaining United States citizens, immigration services, explaining the payments, because in those rural communities, sometimes you hear that rally cry more about taking jobs away from Americans than you do in my district.

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T. sector. So I [00:31:00] understand how all of these things work. But what caught me about this conversation or when we first connected was that I didn't see. This being a reasonable pathway in the K through 12 space. So when you think about the financial complexity and the immigration complexity, what are the things that other leaders need to be aware of if they're trying to launch this on their own?

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And then I also talk about what are the. Other costs that come with this. So last year, [00:32:00] or two years ago in my district, just on loss, prep and planning time. So that's when teachers cover for one another because of vacancies. We spent 80, 000. Just on that, and that's not even costing out how much morale that is costing us.

So when you look at how much fiscally it costs, I think that's something to consider. Another piece too, this is actually one of the long term solutions for us. Visas typically are awarded for the H 1B for three years, and then it's renewable for another three years.

At Fridley Public Schools, three years is definitely long enough for us to decide whether or not the talent is someone we want to continue with just as we would with a domestic and give all those supports and all those things. So we make a good informed decisions. A decision. And then rather than pursuing a second H one B, we will be pursuing a permanent residency employers sponsored, which is also known as green card.

t also helps us. So once the [: 00:33:00

There's also a little bit of myth that you pay for housing, that you pay for airfare. You don't pay for any of that. What we do as a district is we solely pay for what's available. Legally required, which are attorney fees and the government fees for us. And then since we do have some of our talent from the Philippines, we have to pay a small amount to the Philippine government and that's it.

So I just really work with superintendents to think about, yes, it might sound like a lot to pay 10, 000 for a candidate, but let's really break down the benefits of that and what that actually looks like.

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S. businesses over the course of a year. That's somewhere in the neighborhood of 5 billion per year in lost productivity. So that is a cause. But then when you dig into how burnout and low morale impacts turnover, if you look at it at a district level, and I don't know how many districts actually view this way. For every instance of unexpected turnover that you have over the course of the year.

earch as well, each of those [: 00:35:00

Into bringing talent in that's going to shore up your vacancies and create a better quality of. Life at work. It's it's almost a no brainer. So I appreciate you sharing that. So let's play this forward. So when you look at all of these things that you've put into place What's been the impact?

On morale on burnout on teacher effectiveness on student achievement What's what are the things that you've seen now that you've put this emphasis on operating at full staff? And applying a grow your own strategy That uses international talent.

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Second piece where it's very noticeable is when I, as the superintendent in our buildings, I'm seeing very few. Few instances of what I call explosive behavior. I used to see students that were dysregulated in very big ways. And now that we have the staff there, it is so much more preventative, right?

hat is maybe a higher tensor [: 00:37:00

They actually get to have the paras in their classroom that are staffed to be there. Another piece that we are starting here in Fridley that I think will have a pretty significant place in our buildings impact in our buildings is we are starting what's called the setting for program and in special education, there's different settings and for setting for that is pretty intense, meaning that our students disabilities the accommodations needed for those are best served.

Outside of the traditional school building, so we have a new program that we're starting for setting for. And what we have been doing is unfortunately, because there's wait lists all over for setting for programs is we have been keeping our students that we're setting for in our comprehensive elementary, middle and high school.

nment for the other students [: 00:38:00

shortcoming of setting for programs in Minnesota is they can't get the staff to then get the students off the wait list. So that will have a significant impact. Because if you think about that for the small percentage of students that need that level of intensive support when we have them in an environment that doesn't have that, I think you can understand how that creates an environment that is not best for all students.

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[00:38:55] Brenda Lewis: The first element I would say is make sure that you're bringing the international talent for the [00:39:00] right reasons. Don't bring them just to fill a position. Bring our talent to enrich your schools, your classrooms, to be a part of your school environments. The second piece that I would say is, if not this, then what?

And that sounds very simple, but we have been trying and trying for a decade now to find the right talent to have in our classrooms. And the vacancy numbers just continue to grow. And thirdly, think about the impact that we have on the students and staff and our administrators and our buildings daily, when they know these vacancies exist in some districts larger than mine across the nation and in Minnesota, you're seeing 40, 50, 60 teacher vacancies.

important for us to all keep [: 00:40:00

[00:40:06] Dr. Jim: Great stuff. If people want to continue the conversation, what's the best way for them to get in touch with you?

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[00:40:16] Dr. Jim: Awesome stuff. So I appreciate you hanging out with us. And I think there's a lot in this conversation that we could dig into even greater detail, but I want to highlight a few things that I think are important to mention as we wrap up the discussion. And I think one of the big things that I want to emphasize is the.

ROI calculation that we touched on throughout this. So when you look at the cost of running under full staff you're creating an environment where you're losing predictability in your environment. No one actually can come in on any given day and have a clear view of what that day is going to look like.

going to be missing and that [: 00:41:00

And when you have predictability in your system that actually leads to overall success. So by leveraging these international talent programs. pools and bringing that in as part of your overall talent strategy, you're reducing the chaos within your environments, which is massive because then you get your entire team out of survival mode on a day in, day out basis.

The other part that is important to consider is the actual cost to an organization when it comes to maintaining the status quo. What if you're just okay with having these vacancies? That has a downstream impact on how burnt out your team is and how likely it is that your team is is thinking about leaving.

months before [: 00:42:00

and ignoring that at your peril. So I appreciate you highlighting those things in the conversation. For those of you who have listened to this discussion and you liked what you heard, make sure you leave us a review on your favorite podcast player. If you haven't already done so make sure you join our community.

And then tune in next time where we'll have another great leader hanging out with us and sharing with us the game changing insights that help them build a high performing team.