School Board Candidate Questionnaire 2016

While salary is a contributing factor to poor retention, administrators must investigate measures to adequately support their teachers. Greiner et al. (2005) created a five step plan to increase teacher retention. Their plan included designing collaborative training programs, developing flexible scheduling, strengthening relationships between experienced teachers, and developing partnerships between schools and local school districts.

The low pay for our educators is causing many negative effects. New York Times shows that the low income is causing sixty-two percent of teachers to have a second job outside of their teaching jobs. Just to have enough money to support their families and make ends meet. Most everyone decides to college to prevent having these struggles with money, and to avoid having to work multiple jobs, when they get older; however, not when it comes to living off of only a teacher’s income, the struggles to have enough money are interminable. This low pay is also causing most teachers to retire, and find new jobs. New York Times states, “every year 20 percent of teachers in urban districts quit. Nationwide, 46 percent of teachers quit before their fifth year. The turnover costs the

Identify Major Issues: Describe the major issues, both current and historical that may or have impacted the need for the project.

I am a parent in the PVUSD. I am sincerely concerned about the state of the district’s ability to retain and hire qualified teachers. We all want academic achievement and success for every student across the Pajaro Valley Unified School District, clearly that goal cannot be achieved with uncertified, temporary, or substitute teachers rotating on a reoccurring basis. Without qualified teachers who are consistently in the classroom and stay in our communities, academic achievement cannot be accomplished. Please… work harder for a fair compensation package and keep our teachers here at PVUSD.

If you were a member of a school board, what other types of information would you want to know about seclusion and restrictions to either maintain your current plan of action or to advocate for change?

According to the Maryland Teaching Staffing Report, the annual attrition percentage continues to decrease, going from 13.3 percent in 2010-2011 to 11.1 percent in 2012-2013 and 9.3 percent in 2013-2014. Although the total attrition percentage is improving, PGCPS continues to have the greatest percentage of attrition compared to neighboring districts as well as the greatest number of teachers that exit the district with less than one to five years of experience. These data confirm that teacher retention is a major problem that significantly impacts PGCPS. These data also support Ingersoll (2003) and Perda (2013) studies regarding the significant number of teachers that leave the profession within their first five years of teaching.

The new Martin Luther King Pilot School will have a high morale. The teachers will work together cooperatively to ensure that the students reach their full potential of success. A panel of well diverse teachers will serve along side of administrators and principal. The teachers and administrators will work cohesively to sear for a principal that will match the vision of the school. The school will include the parents on the selection of the principal by hosting a town meeting to ensure that the parents voices are heard and their vison of a principal is also shared. The principal shall be an individual who is culturally knowledgeable, diverse, strong, patient, open-minded, possess strong leadership skills. The principal will be able to lead by example.

If I was elected as ECPS Teacher of the Year, I would communicate to my profession and the general public that educating our youth is something that educators can’t do alone. It is a must that educators, parents and other members of the community work together. It is time that we welcome and embrace our increasingly diverse population as part of our community. Without everyone in the community working together, teachers and schools are incomplete and can’t complete the goal which is to educate all children. The home, the school and community must foster mutual respect and responsibility and be fully engaged in all of our students’ academic success. Everyone has to know what we are doing, where we are going and why.

In the article “Education at Crossroads part 3” Vicki Viotti discusses improvements regarding retention with new teachers. “An emphasis on mentoring teachers in their first three years has been credited with more of them staying beyond five years in the profession, a proportion that’s now up to 60 percent”(Viotti pg.3 par.1). Teacher retention is when teachers decide to continue following their path as teachers. The rate of teacher retention was low due to teachers transferring to other schools. However, after being a persistent matter in schools, it has recently increased to 60%. In addition to teacher retention, resources for fundings also seem to be a problem. “...resources aren’t where they should be”(Viotti pg.3 par.3). The DOE believes

The success of the education system in California continues to be dependent on the willingness to meet the changing needs of its population. In order for the state government to insure that educators are up to the challenge, the factors influencing California teacher

These three articles investigate on different factors; however they share common key theme: what makes teachers to leave

Because she was certified and was able to produce results she quickly landed another opportunity, which she would walk away from as well after only two months of employment. Now you may say well she just didn’t want to work, ok possibly, but not even a week after her declaration of independence from teaching, did my other sister resign from her teaching position after three years and being in three different districts. On top of those not so positive situations, I was encountering the almost perplexing nonchalant attitude of students who confessed daily, “You won’t be here all year anyway, every year one of my teachers quit in the middle of the year” and this is was from the mouth of a fifth grader. Growing up, I could never recall a teacher quitting on me, the class or any other class, but nowadays it seems almost expected. Today, I am experiencing first hand that teachers are coming and going not only year-by-year but for some it’s month by month. Does the administration even care about retention? A thought I ponder as I hear others tell of their situations at their schools and how they don’t

Higher education has been experiencing high turnover rates among teachers. According to Gonzalez and Brown (2008), the NEA (National Education Association) reported that 20% of recently hired teachers will leave the profession within the first three years (Gonzalez & Brown, 2008). In urban areas, however, 50% of teachers will leave the classroom within the same timeframe (p. 2). This is due to low wages, personal dissatisfaction, and emotional/social factors (p.2). Such factors contribute to teacher burnout.

According to a study conducted by the National Center for Education statistics (NCES) (2015), nationally, 17 percent of teachers leave after five years and 20 percent of teachers leave urban school districts. It was reported that after one year, 10 percent of teachers leave, 12 percent after two years, 15 percent after three years and 17 percent after 4-5 years (Kopkowski, 2008). Some of the reasons teachers leave the teaching profession, specifically urban school districts are: the pressure of raising standardized test scores, lack of teacher support, student

Several years back, some of the researchers carried out analysis that proven the ability to understand that ineffective teachers leave schools than effective teachers with intention to leave schools because of low achieving and the minority students. The argument that is likely to generate from this topic is, to what extent will teacher turnover be beneficial?