The Secret Sauce of Teacher Longevity: How to Make Staff Want to Stay

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Mentoring can take many forms, but how do you make it meaningful in a way that is intentional about employee retention? These questions become even more important when you're looking at the K through 12 space, the education space is facing a talent shortage, and there's a high incidence of people leaving the sector within their first three years.

So when you think about designing a mentoring program, that's focused on educator retention and development, how do you take it beyond a glorified buddy system? That's what we're going to tackle in today's conversation with our featured guest, Nate Perry. Nate grew up in Janesville Wisconsin and attended the university of Wisconsin, Madison to become a history teacher.

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And then for the last 10 years, he's worked for the school district of Belleville. The first six years as principal of a middle school and high school. And then the last four is a district administrator. He's going to be celebrating his 25th wedding anniversary and with his wife, Sarah, he has four daughters together ranging from the ages of 21 to eight.

And he still travels as a family every summer and enjoys playing cards or board games and watching movies. He's a big Wisconsin sports fan and we won't hold that against him considering I'm an Illinois transplant. So we'll just leave the rest of that stuff out. He likes reading and spending time outdoors.

So Nate, Welcome to the show.

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[00:01:52] Dr. Jim: I'm pumped to have you on here. I think this is going to be an interesting conversation mainly because we haven't done a deep dive on how you [00:02:00] set up.

Really successful mentorship programs and mentorship like coaching can mean any number of things to any number of people. And it seems like every organization has a different take on it. But before we dive into that piece of the conversation, I think it's important for you to set the tone a little bit.

And share with us in the audience, some of the key things that helped develop your leadership philosophy, your mentorship viewpoints, and also get into some of the ins and outs of the district landscape that you're dealing with. And that's going to set the stage really well for the rest of the conversation.

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Again, I was in the classroom for 13 years, and it has become more and more challenging, especially since Act 10, which I'm not sure if your viewers or listeners would know too much about in Wisconsin, but it radically changed the landscape of what our pools of teachers look like. Just to give you an example, probably for Act 10.

o let's say if you go back to: 2010

viable. And then when I was reaching out to other districts who had similar postings and [00:04:00] asking what their pools look like they had no candidates. And so you're looking at a situation in some of these smaller districts where they may not have a music or choir program at the secondary level because of that.

So I've always looked at it that way. From a teacher's perspective and what can we do to get good people into the career because it is it can be very rewarding and how do we get them to stay and be productive like what they're doing and and be longtime teachers in the district.

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So when you. Evaluate how the operations of those districts run and specifically things that work well, regardless of the size of district when it comes to finding great [00:05:00] talent, but more importantly, developing them and keeping them over the long run. What are some of the things that you noticed were particularly good practices, regardless of the student population size that really put teachers in a position to be successful and also stay in the industry?

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I know every single teacher by name. I know every single custodian. I know every aid by name and probably a little bit about their background, their family, and are able to touch on those points with them in larger districts. It is then about creating a. Like a pseudo family around them. It's just to a greater scale, right?

istrict, but it's definitely [: 00:06:00

Those are it is it's a matter of scale and making sure that they have those personal connections

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So if you had to advise. Let's say new superintendents in a new district or even first time superintendents, how should they be allocating their time over the first half a year in a new space to make sure that they're focused in on building that sense of connectedness and belonging within the school district, and especially amongst their [00:07:00] full time staff.

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So it is 1 of those where, if you can answer your. 100 plus 200 emails early in the morning and after the school bell rings at night, which is tough. You're going to have people waiting on an answer sometimes but you only get so much time during that school day with kids and with staff members. And it is important that staff members see you in their classrooms that they know what, that you know what they're doing in their classrooms, that you value them, even something as simple as a follow up email to say, Hey, it was great seeing you today.

ght about and give a general [: 00:08:00

I think the visibility part during the school day is huge. And then trying to do all the administrative stuff like my job. I would say maybe 10 percent of it really has to do with kids and what I would call like learning. The rest of it is school board adult problems, staffing, finance facilities.

And so that can bog you down and get you to stay in your office a lot.

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[00:08:56] Nate Perry: Great question because we are we're in Dane County, [00:09:00] which is one of the largest in terms of population in Wisconsin, it is a. destination county or location for many new teachers around a, a pretty nice college town in Madison that's well known to have a good social cultural scene.

And we do get teachers that want to be in that area. Having said that, we're in Dane County. We're actually split between two counties, Dane and Green. Dane tends to be much more liberal. Green, much more conservative, and our split is exactly 50 50. We've got, our location is in Dane, but we've got 50 percent of our kids coming from Green.

50 percent of our kids coming from Dane County. Generally speaking parents who send their kids to Belleville or have located there especially if they haven't lived there all their lives, want that access to Madison and all that it has to offer, whether it's, college sports or the university shows, entertainment, restaurants, but then they also want their kids to go to a smaller community based.

A family feel type of [: 00:10:00

And where we may not be able to compete oftentimes in like top notch salary, we may be, 10, 000 less on the top end. We may be 5, 000 less, maybe not that much, but close to it on a base. We can be fairly competitive, but I've always said we've got to be in the ballpark with salary because it's the other things that are bringing in our teachers.

They want to work in a smaller district where they can get to know their colleagues, they get to know their students and families, while feel supported by the administration, but also feel supported by the community. In a much larger district, there's just not that feel to it.

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Because I would assume based on where you are and the type of things that draw people into your district. Smaller family feel. I would think that would skew to more of a younger educator population, but I could be wrong. So tell us a little bit more about how the feel of your district influences your talent strategy into who's self selecting it.

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Interestingly enough, we've had quite a few teachers that are not from Belleville, that area [00:12:00] that will come in. They don't live in there. They might live in Madison or another outlying suburb, and then they start teaching there. They have a family, and because this might be five to seven years into a career in Belleville, and I'm thinking of probably a dozen different families now, these are teachers that have worked in the district, and because of the atmosphere, I think, and culture that we've created, they will actually buy a house.

in Belleville, bring their students into the district or even open enroll into the district and want their kids to be there too. I always judge a school district by, as a parent, would I want my kids in these classrooms with these teachers? And that's a pretty good feel. If you can say, no, I wouldn't want my, my own child in that teacher's classroom, that's obviously a red flag.

lot of homegrown talent and [: 00:13:00

I don't see that as a bad thing at all. They know the area. They know the culture. They know the tradition. They know the expectation. There's been high expectations there in terms of academics, and they want to come back. I also look at, when we talk about Burnout, longevity, people staying, those people you can almost guarantee are going to stay in a district.

That being said, I might contradict myself a little bit. Whenever I'm in an interview committee, we'll have people say I don't think this candidate is going to stay very long. This other one might stay longer. I've never hired people that way. I think what you have to do is you have to hire the best person, and then you have to trust that your system, your culture is going to.

Want to keep them there that they'll be drawn to that and they won't want to move.

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You've convinced somebody to join. But the second part of that equation, when you're looking at it from an employee lifecycle perspective is convincing them how to stay or convincing them that they need to stay. So I really liked the fact that you mentioned predicting how long somebody might stay or not stay is a bad hiring criteria because.

You could have the greatest predictor of somebody staying, but if you do a really poor job on the onboarding and development side of it, they're going to leave anyways. So I say all that to get line of sight from your perspective on how you've built that. Tendency to stay within your district. What did you notice and what did you leverage to make sure that once somebody is hired, you're giving them the best opportunity to stick around for the long haul.

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A trigger for me was I was caught off guard and this young new teacher, she had been there a couple of years dual certified you dread the text in the middle of the summer. Do you have a few minutes to talk today? I know what's going to happen. She's going to come into my office and say she's leaving for another district, and that's exactly what happened.

And so that really sparked first as a principal in me that I need to do a better job at getting the pulse of our new teachers throughout the school year. So one of the early things that we did is four times a year quarterly, So that's what we did. We would meet with all of our new teachers for about an hour.

We made it very social, brought in food and we did it right after school so they didn't have to come back for anything. And there was always a element of, what's upcoming. So we would say, like in the first quarter, you've got parent teacher conferences coming up. You've never had those before.

Here's [: 00:16:00

You've got exams coming up. Here's what that looks like here. Here's how you can help prepare. Here's what it's going to look like. Same thing in the spring as the year moves on and there's some challenges in terms of behavior and stamina with students coming up to spring break. How do you handle some of those challenges?

And then again, there's always the opportunity in those meetings To be able to get some feedback. After that point, rarely was I surprised by a staff member that might leave unexpectedly. And then as a superintendent that transitioned into the program that we have now Which isn't a cooperation with a csa, it's a cooperative educational service agency.

provide services, so they're [: 00:17:00

So that's on a a larger scale that we're getting some of that help. So I did try to transfer some of that over from. My principal work to superintendent.

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And you just hinted [00:18:00] at rolling out a mentorship component to the onboarding and development phase of it. Tell us a little bit more about the design of that mentorship program and specifically how it's not just a generic buddy system that typically gets labeled a mentorship program and a lot of other organizations.

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with those mentees that they were actually working with. For example where we may have had a really odd mismatch, we might have a second grade teacher with a high school musical, music teacher as a mentor mentee relationship. Now we're talking about, a fourth grade teacher potentially with that grade level or a fifth grade teacher, somebody like [00:19:00] that very close.

Same thing at the high school. If we've got a math teacher, we'd like to be able to partner them with a mentor that's a math or science teacher, somebody that knows what they're doing and what their classroom looks like, who their students are on a daily basis. So that was one piece of it. There is also a through the new teacher center, they do have some programs that are, based in based in the data that they get back that are going to, if you take your teachers through these new teachers through these programs, That are going to make them one more effective and then to last longer in your district and avoid burnout.

And some of those are again, just good practices across the board and instructionally based. For example, this year, we there's always a learning component. It's not just social, but there is a learning component. This past year, we went through a book called when I started teaching, I wish I had known.

ct in your classroom at that [: 00:20:00

You can say, no, there are some suggestions in there from veterans, teachers, veteran teachers. Again, try to get them with somebody that's in a light content or grade level. There's certainly a learning component to it. The other thing that I would say that was not done previously, Jim, is Getting them all together.

So not just, the mentor mentee, but getting that large group together so that we can talk about what things are going on because you can bring up a situation that's happening with a new teacher and saying, what are some of the things that you're struggling right now with? And then there's some relatable conversations that others can have.

rtable. We want them to feel [: 00:21:00

The other thing that I would add is this is paid. So anytime that there's a stipend for our mentors and anytime that we are asking the mentees to come into a meeting a larger meeting like that, it is paid, it's about 30 an hour. But I go back to Drucker and. The fact that we're paying you makes it something that we're monitoring is an important to us.

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But there's one other thing that that I think is You mentioned that I want to dig into a little bit more, and it's related to the issue of burnout, and you have this playbook that you developed or that's been developed that talks about [00:22:00] the things that I wish I would have known or something along those lines that you referenced, but in that conversation, you mentioned, we also talk about the importance of being able to say no as an educator so that you're guarding your time.

So when you look at that, And you tie it to burnout. How have you built the capacity for educators to respond in that way across the district so that they're more energized throughout the year and not getting burned out

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Usually early on they may not be married, male or female teacher. They may not be married And probably don't have kids yet if you're hiring brand new out of college. And they're oftentimes willing to volunteer, willing to put in work serve on [00:23:00] committees go to dances, chaperone, you name it.

And then you lose that aspect of them. They're still probably pretty good in the classroom, but you're not going to get something if they're, a brand new mom or dad, they've got a young family. But if you stick with them, once their kids get a little bit older and their free time, let's say opens up just a little bit you get that person back.

By the time that their kids are 10 or 12 years old, you're going to start to see them. My wife is a good example. Did a lot. As a brand new teacher volunteered for everything, we've got four kids for a while there. She was not volunteering. She was coming home after school and taking care of our family.

And now that our kids are older she's on a lot of committees. She's the PTO president. You see that. So You can count on some of that. The one thing I would say to your question, though, is, and I'm referencing a situation we just had in the last few years, where sometimes we'll actually coach new teachers I think this is too much for you.

I don't want you [: 00:24:00

And so it was like a year where She was involved in everything and it really did worry us. Like you might want to slow down a little bit and make sure that you're taking care of yourself, that you're happy, that you've got some time to do things that you want to do.

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I think that sets it sets an interesting tone. So continue taking this a little bit further. You have this mentorship program in place. How do you make it meaningful for teachers that are more senior in their career and still demonstrate your commitment to that segment of your educator population?

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You want to be respectful of the knowledge that they bring into your system. But at the same time, we do have a secondary program for them. That really is a bonus. A buddy system. So what we're concentrating on there is they're still invited to all the large group mentor mentee. Meetings and they do have valuable insight to our brand new teachers, [00:26:00] but the focus for that group is particularly getting them acclimated to our culture and the way that we do things in our district.

Some of it. We almost joke about, right? It's how do you use the copier? Where do you park? How do you get your lunch count? Those sorts of things. But there is a piece about the way that we do certain things, whether it's teaching reading or teaching math, how we go about professional development, again, how we develop our culture, how we take care of one another.

And that's important. So the time that we might save on getting them up to speed on being a good, instructor in the classroom is then geared toward making sure that they're comfortable in the system, that they know how that they can contribute right away. And we do listen to them.

erently. Then we do with our [: 00:27:00

[00:27:01] Dr. Jim: It's interesting that you have that set up in place and structured a little bit differently for more of your senior or your more senior educators. One thing that I'm wondering about with this overall. Mentorship program that you're you have in place. How is that feeding your leadership ranks across the district?

Is there a mechanism set up in the program overall that helps you identify high potential folks who might want to or be interested in going the admin track?

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And they have to get prior approval for that. So usually we know when somebody's going to start national board certification [00:28:00] process, or we know that they're going to enter a master's program. We do pay a small one time stipend for a master's degree, and then there's a bump in salary that is ongoing every year after that.

And so that sometimes helps us identify Who is pursuing this type because they also give us a A breakdown of what that program is going to look like and if it's a leadership program from there in both you know at every level there are some some team leadership opportunities Whether it's leading middle school meetings or a high school department meeting or a grade level team meeting at an elementary level And then even from there We've had if it's somebody that wants experience in leadership, there are all kinds of opportunities, let's say in athletics where, hey if you'd like to supervise tonight's varsity boys basketball game, we could use some help.

onsibility on taking on like [: 00:29:00

You'll see a lot of districts do this. where we've got instructional coaches. So that may go from the classroom and we see great opportunity. And we see that not only are they a good teacher, but they're also a good colleague, have a relatability about them, and then can look at them as an either interventionist or an instructional coach.

which they're either helping typically in reading or math in those areas. And then that leads to other leadership opportunities. Within the district that I'm in, the Belleville district a couple of our leadership team members, for example, our business manager was somebody that came in as a business ed teacher went through a program and was hired as our business manager, same thing, the elementary school principal came up as a 4k.

for those opportunities. The [: 00:30:00

[00:30:04] Dr. Jim: When I think about all the things that we've talked about Mhm. It sounds like a pretty solidly structured program. What were the biggest roadblocks that you encountered when you tried to launch and implement this? And how did you overcome them?

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I've got to do some planning. I've got grading to do. I've got some parent contacts that I need to make. I've got other things that I need to do right now. And so to let them know that some of those can wait. and your development and the ability to, connect with other teachers right now is important.

tings makes it not something [: 00:31:00

And then really trying to promote. What would you like to see these sessions do for you? So there's twice per year, we do survey those mentors and mentees, ask them how it's going. And we always ask, what would you like these sessions to be like? And so we will get some feedback and then change that for the following year.

We've done that with new teacher orientation and have changed. A simple change was this was used to be a one day long. There's so much information that was being thrown at them from, how to put grades into employment paperwork to a tour of the district to building rules and practices and policies that by the afternoon it was going right over their head.

was. Could we break this up [: 00:32:00

[00:32:14] Dr. Jim: When you look at the program that you've put into place and you evaluate it against teacher effectiveness against teacher retention. What are the results that you think are worth mentioning?

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They're going to a, a neighboring school district. Now I can pinpoint even to my school board when they're asking, why did we have five teachers leave? this summer or this spring, I can pinpoint exactly why they are leaving. So [00:33:00] oftentimes, Jim, it's not about just moving to another district because they were unhappy.

There's more money there. Oftentimes it's a family decision. They're moving back close to home. It could be that they're getting out of education. altogether or the fit in terms of we have had some that have gone from teaching to counseling or from a high school level to an elementary school level in another district.

Rarely now is it that same position or type of job in another, neighboring district that we're losing now. And that's valuable to us. What I would say is, if somebody's saying, why would you put all this? into all this effort into it is what is it worth to you to not have to start over with a new employee or a new staff member every few years.

up rather than coaching out, [: 00:34:00

And We really look at it as an investment into somebody that's going to stay long term and we're just not fooled anymore with people living. There's a specific reason why they're leaving us now.

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So I think that's an important Call out that that stood out from your answer. So when you think about everything that we've talked about up until this point, and you're advising somebody else that wants to build a really effective mentorship program, what are some of the key things that they need to keep in mind?

s these sort of results that [: 00:35:00

[00:35:00] Nate Perry: A few things. One, I would just say, you, you've got to get started, right? Start. And get something in place. The other piece would be open to feedback. You should be asking is this program effective or what do you need out of this program for it to be more effective? Is it serving your needs?

And not only Do the survey, but listen to what the results are that are coming in and act on those. I'd also say focus on improvement and not perfection. You're probably going to have, if you've got 10 new teachers, there's probably one that said I didn't get much out of this program and you need to listen to that.

But focus on improvement. It's not always going to be to be perfect. The other thing I say is there's always gotta be an instructional component to it. It can't just be that buddy system. We do have to focus on what does good instructional practice look like. But I would say I would never totally get rid of that social piece.

three of these meetings that [: 00:36:00

about the loyalty and trust that they have in their leadership and their colleagues and not wanting to disappoint them and wanting to remain working with a group or, a pseudo family that they have developed. There, there is value to that.

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[00:36:42] Nate Perry: Sure. My new phone number I'll give that out. I don't care. 608 882 3386. It's a Wisconsin number. My new email Perry, N P E R Y N at Evansville. k12. wi. us.

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That's one part of the employee life cycle, convincing somebody to join, but it's much tougher to convince them to stay because that's something that you have to do every single day. And part of your strategy should be on how do you build community around the people that you bring into your organization?

should stay. Then. The other [: 00:38:00

And I think that's really important too, because if you're setting up any program, you have to create that feedback loop where you're listening and acting based on what's happening from the front lines. And that's an important component that I that I want to emphasize. And the last thing that I want to call out is that throughout this entire process, you're giving people the permission to say no, and you have line building line of sight into what's going on at the ground level.

yond what their capacity is. [: 00:39:00

We appreciate you hanging out. If you like the discussion, 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.