Three hundred plus new hires would be outstanding if only the district could hang onto the teachers that are already here.  Using the Superintendent’s data, HPS, for the first 7 months of this school year, watched as 32 teachers a month left the district.  That number is 35% higher than the amount of district wide math teachers they have hired in the past two years combined (21). 

HPS needs to be on a teacher IV to cover these losses.  For this school year, while losing 32 teachers a month, the Superintendent’s “Total Hires to Date” number shows that HPS is hiring 48 new teachers each month, for a net gain of 16 new teachers each month.

The issues behind the numbers are issues the Superintendent and her team would rather not air out in public, and they haven’t.  Are the economics of a teacher IV sustainable?  What harm is the constant teacher turnover doing to a student’s education?  And why the hell are 32 teachers a month walking out of Hartford each month?

There are costs associated with welcoming new teachers and there are costs associated with saying “adios” to a teacher.  Recruiting costs, incentive costs, and training costs are among the costs associated with hiring new teachers.  While separation costs could include unused sick or vacation time pay, separation pay, and costs associated with processing the dearly departed.  The investment in, and the processing out, of teachers are rolled into individual turnover costs when a teacher leaves the district.

By averaging estimates from several studies and filtering for district type and size, the folks at the Learning Policy Institute suggest that urban districts are out approximately $20,000 each time an experienced teacher leaves the building.  With Hartford’s 244 departures, this, estimates the Institute, is costing HPS $4.7 million!

The National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future (NCTAF) studied five districts of various sizes to estimate the cost of teacher turnover.  They estimate that the cost per “teacher leaver” ranged from $4,000 in rural Jemez Valley, New Mexico, to $18,000 in Chicago.  Chicago’s turnover cost is over $86 million per year!

Another unsustainable economic point to consider is the loss of federal COVID relief funds (ESSER) next school year.  Many new teacher hires are being paid with ESSER funding.  Principals, assistant principals, paraprofessionals, and support staff were hired with ESSER funding. HPS’ teacher recruitment partners are being paid with ESSER funding.  The loss of these funds threatens the ability of Hartford’s teacher IV to keep pace with the loss of teachers.

This is not a Dunkin’ Donuts where anybody with a heartbeat (well…) can replace a departed worker.  Teachers are trained professionals with comparative associated costs.  HPS would be wise to consider the turnover costs of their professionals the next time a team from central office is deployed to stifle teacher input at professional development meetings.

There are also intangible costs associated with constant teacher turnover.  Christopher Redding, an Associate Professor at the University of Florida who conducts research on education policy, teacher policy, and school improvement, states that “teacher turnover is one of the more disruptive things that I’ve discovered in my research” on a child’s learning experience. 

Through his work, Redding says that losing a teacher during the school year is like taking between 32 and 72 instructional days off the school calendar.  In a district like Hartford’s, where losing 50 days to chronic absenteeism is not uncommon, adding another 30-70 missed instructional days due to the loss of a teacher is devastating to a child’s educational achievement.  The community then pays the cost of an uneducated citizenry.

A research study of the effects of teacher turnover on over 850,000 New York City 4th and 5th graders over 8 years was published in the American Educational Research Journal in 2013.  The study found that students in grades with higher turnover rates score lower in both ELA and math and the effect is “particularly” more damaging in schools with more low-performing and black students.

Students suffer the consequences of a districts inability to keep teachers in the classroom: substitute teachers, canceled classes, and inexperienced and underprepared teachers.  While the discussion of diversity in the district’s schools is an important one, based on the theory that students learn better with a teacher who looks like them, it is also important to realize that a student will learn better if they are looking at the same teacher week in and week out. There is a 7th and 8th grade math class in one Hartford school that hasn’t had a math teacher to look at the entire school year.

Also, high rates of turnover “quickly undo” a schools’ effort to recruit new teachers.  How does HPS explain to a potential teacher recruit why they have 32 teachers a month walking out the door?

Why are Hartford teachers abandoning Hartford schools like it’s the Titanic?  If you are losing 244 teachers over the course of the first seven months of the school year, it should be apparent that salary is not the main goat in this discussion.  Teachers do not suddenly wake up in April of the school year and discover that they are underpaid.

We could reference stacks of research literature on the “why” of teacher turnover, all pointing to main themes of support, leadership, and culture.  Let’s be more contextual and look to where the rubber meets the road in Connecticut.

Before we dive into these surveys, let’s make a note that teacher retention was not a main topic of the Superintendent’s latest Workshop presentation, nor was it a focus of discussion amongst her team and the Board at this meeting.  HPS has seen 244 teachers leave the building this school year, but no one at this meeting thought this an important plot point for discussion at this meeting?  Hartford, I think we’ve found a problem.

A collaborative survey put out by the Hartford Federation of Teachers, Hartford Federation of Paraprofessionals, and the American Federation of Teachers last spring found that 82% of teachers said teacher retention was a “major” issue.  A year later, we find the Superintendent in deep discussions with the Board concerning teacher recruitment and teacher attrition, but nary a word is spoken on what teachers consider a “major” issue.

Teacher burnout, expanded teaching roles, and poor leadership as 75% of the teachers surveyed gave Superintendent Torres-Rodriguez an “unfavorable” rating, were key takeaways from this survey.

A survey by the Connecticut Education Association (Hartford Courant, Online, Nov. 22, 2022) found that 74% of teachers across Connecticut were fixing to leave their positions earlier than expected due to teacher burnout, increased teacher roles, and working conditions.

The graphic below was shared by the Superintendent’s team at the Workshop meeting last week.  Browsing the results, we see that nearly a third of teachers plan to hit the road next school year, a third of Hartford teachers do not feel valued, nearly half wouldn’t recommend the district to a colleague, and nearly two-thirds wouldn’t even send their own child here!  And yet there is no major discussion on why 244 teachers have left Hartford Schools in the past 7 months!