Building on the SY2022/23 project that supported school leaders’ in identifying meaningful indicators of effective teaching, this project is grounded in continuous improvement processes, particularly, the “study” and “act” phases of the Plan-Do-Study-Act cycle. School teams will research their own school’s methods and processes for supporting literacy instruction as it relates to their school improvement plans. REL Pacific will facilitate four coaching sessions with school teams between July 2023 and April 2024.

This applied research project directly supports the Palau Partnership to Support Teacher Effectiveness and the Palau MOE goal to attract, develop, and retain a qualified and effective teacher workforce. In the short term, these analyses will allow the Palau MOE to better anticipate future teacher recruitment needs by using the results to anticipate upcoming teacher workforce changes related to the mandatory retirement age and the associate degree requirement. In the medium to long term, these findings can be used to better understand the reasons teachers exit the profession, which can inform efforts to design supports for teachers considering leaving and can inform future data collection efforts to further refine the plan for improved teacher recruitment and retention. The study is expected to be published in summer 2024.