Get Your USD Involved

Survey Window: October 13 - December 17, 2021

The Kansas Teacher Retention Initiative is focused on measuring, understanding, interpreting, and disseminating data-driven insights regarding the driving factors of teacher engagement and retention within school districts and across the state of Kansas.

As you know, no one is better equipped to provide information on how to better retain teachers than the teachers themselves.

Your assistance is greatly appreciated in encouraging certified teaching staff to complete a 10-minute online survey specific to teacher retention. Given our shared efforts to improve teacher engagement and retention across the state, results will be provided in a free standard report to every Kansas school district.

We have established a statewide participation goal of 70% to ensure our data collection effort is meaningful in identifying the factors contributing to a significant statewide teacher shortage. In addition to sharing the survey with your educators, please consider giving time during a staff meeting or professional development session to support a high level of participation in this survey.

On Tuesday, October 12, you will receive and email with the link to the survey. This will include background information and instructions inviting your educators to complete the survey.

This message is likely ‘preaching to the choir’, but there has never been a more ideal time to devote time and resources to better understand and effectively address the challenges of Kansas’ teacher shortage.

Even before COVID-19, recruitment and retention of qualified teaching staff was difficult for many districts. The desire to remain in the teaching profession during a global pandemic, amidst an increasingly divided and polarized school environment, continues to trend in an increasingly alarming direction:

• From early 2020 - March 2021, the number of teachers expected to work in the classroom until retirement age dropped 5% with an additional 6% answering “I don’t know.”

• Frontline Education recently reported two-thirds of survey respondents indicated there is a teacher shortage. This is a record high since data collection began in 2015.

• Traditionally, many Kansas school districts collect exit interview and/or stay interviews have paused performing such interviews due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Further, we do not currently have statewide retention data based specifically on teacher perceptions and attitudes.

Designed by Dr. Bret Church and Dr. Luke Simmering, the Kansas Educator Retention Survey was specifically designed for the state as a collaborative, large scale data collection effort to reveal trends, insights, and opportunities for improvement. The results will identify key factors contributing to teacher retention, opportunities to improve conditions for teachers that will increase retention, and meaningful information to positively influence state and local policy. Survey and data from this initiative is to be an educational resource to help provide data driven insights; it was not designed to be used as an evaluation tool for any person, program, or project.

Responses will remain confidential and secure within the primary researcher’s secure Qualtrics account. Qualtrics is an industry-standard online survey development and analysis software. Data submissions will not be shared individually, however, collective findings, insights, and reports will be provided to assist school districts in addressing and improving teacher retention. Reporting and analysis will be available to each district free of charge and is anticipated in the first quarter of 2022. Additionally, districts will have the opportunity to access additional in-depth support and analysis prior to the end of the 2021-22 school year.

We are extremely proud to have the support of Emporia State University, the Kansas Association of School Boards, Kansas National Education Association, and USA-Kansas. However, the success of our efforts will be tied to our ability to collect meaningful data from each of Kansas’ 286 school districts. We need district administration and building principals to convey the importance of this initiative to ensure success. Providing your teachers the time to share their current thoughts and perspectives specific to their chosen profession in education is the foundation of this study.

We have provided the Kansas Teacher Retention Survey - Executive Overview.pdf to give you the breadth and depth of the project's goals, while highlighting key information. Feel free to use this internally as you see fit.

Thank you in advance for your participation, and willingness to support the collective efforts to improve teacher retention in Kansas!

Dr. Bret Church

Associate Professor, Emporia State University

bchurch@emporia.edu

Dr. Luke Simmering

Industrial/Organizational Psychologist, Sand Creek Advisors LLC
Luke.simmering@sandcreekadvisorsllc.com