Local teacher groups optimistic about state’s new plan to retain teachers

COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)

The Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education is working to keep teachers in their profession.

The department recently launched the state's first "Teacher recruitment and retention playbook," aimed at improving the retention rate for high-quality teachers within the state. According to a release from DESE, the playbook was created from data collected from recipients of teacher and recruitment grants.

Data from DESE shows in-district teacher retention between 2023-2024 was 83.4% for all teachers, down from 86.7% in 2018-2019. That trend was similar for in-profession teacher retention, which saw a drop from 91.1% to 88.7% for the same years.

The data spans from the 2018-19 school year to the 2023-24 school year. Initial teacher certificates issued have declined over that period by roughly 300, with 3,921 being issued in 2018-19 and 3,607 in 2023-24. A drop of 393 occurred between the 2020-21 school year and 2021-22 school year.

The teaching hiring rate for first-year teachers dropped by 1.6% from 2022-23 and 2023-24, but saw a 1.6% increase of hiring teachers from another district. The first-year hiring rate for 2023-24 is 0.7% higher than 2018-19, while the hire-from-another district stat is lower by 1.1% during the same period.

The average starting salary and average salary increased when the Teacher Baseline Salary Grant was introduced in the 2022-23 school year.  

The playbook outlines eight "cornerstones" DESE identified as areas of focus. Those include:

• Effective teacher recruitment and retention requires the support of a state system;
• Statewide campaigns are needed to elevate the teaching profession;
• Effective teacher recruitment and retention requires collaboration and constituency building;
• Funding is essential and must be targeted;
• The tools of public policy need to be used strategically;
• Funding and policy choices trigger decisions related to teacher development;
• A state system needs to recognize the critical importance of teacher voice;
• Teacher retention requires the alignment of three factors: recruitment, development, and compensation

Highlights of the cornerstones include improving the overall perception of teachers within the state, boosting baseline salaries for teachers across the state and supporting the growth of teachers.

The playbook also outlines the need to give teachers within the state a voice, listing it as a crucial factor toward maintaining retention, something local teacher groups also find important.

"We've had individuals that have said to us you know what, 'I don't plan on ever teaching again. So if the district wants to go after my certification, that's fine with me'," Todd Fuller with the Missouri State Teacher's Association said."We need to keep individuals in the profession because it's helpful and important for the new teachers coming in to have teachers that have experience that can help mentor them."

Columbia Missouri National Education Association President Noelle Gilzow also said she believes the profession of teaching has received a bad reputation since the COVID-19 pandemic and agrees with the need to incentivize it.

Gilzow also teaches at Hickman High School in Columbia and said she views poor salary pay as a contributing factor to retention issues in the state.

"Just knowing that we could go across the border to Illinois and get paid more is a draw and a lot of times we lose teachers out of Columbia because they go back to Saint Louis or Kansas City," Gilzow said.

The playbook document lists the following as some of the critical shortage areas:

• Elementary and Early Education;
• K-12 physical education, music-vocal, music-instrumental, health, marketing and library media specialist;
• Middle school social science, business, and agriculture;
• High school social science, business, speech and theater, agriculture and journalism

The playbook also lists the need to provide teachers with the critical skills and knowledge within the profession and focusing on their development. It states principals within schools play a large role in ensuring this occurs.

Fuller and Gilzow view the state's plan as a step in the right direction, but both have ideas about other areas of focus that could help with the on-going issue.

"We need to make sure that we're focusing on teachers that have experience...that have maybe their master's degree even, and make sure that they're being compensated based on their levels of experience," Fuller said. "That's not necessarily happening in every district the way that it should. And so teachers need to be appreciated."

Gilzow said she also sees value in more districts utilizing working conditions listening tours, aimed at gaining information from districts about what their concerns are in regards to working conditions.

"That is one of those intangibles that you can do a small tweak and really improve the life of a teacher and hopefully then be able to retain that teacher in the district," Gilzow said.