Teacher retention continues to be a pressing educational issue nationwide and increased rates of turnover tend to negatively impact student outcomes. Strategic human capital management practices that target improvements in administrative support can be an important mechanism for retaining teachers in schools and districts. This multi-year partnership between REL West and Arizona’s Maricopa County School Superintendent’s office (MCSS) will refine and study MCSS’s Stay Interview strategy, a retention improvement strategy aimed at improving workplace conditions to help districts address teacher attrition.
Current Projects
To address issues of teacher retention in Maricopa County, this applied research study will help evaluate the effectiveness of the Stay Interview Intervention, which is being used by the Maricopa County School Superintendent’s Office to increase early career teacher retention. The quasi-experimental study will be conducted in a subset of districts in Maricopa County and will use a school-level matched comparison design.
Completed Projects
REL West supported the Maricopa County School Superintendent’s Office through a coaching project to help them standardize and refine the application of its Stay Interviews. The Stay Interview is a teacher retention strategy to better understand the root causes of teacher retention in a district. It is being implemented across several districts in Maricopa County. REL West helped improve knowledge of data-gathering tools, processes, and protocols as part of the Stay Interview process, and built capacity for using evidence for continuous improvement around teacher retention.