The Key

To Your Classroom … the Key to Success

Way back when I was a rookie, I was given a key to a classroom and told "Good luck." At least I think the principal told me "good luck." Maybe he just gave me a key. So, in truth, I didn't have a classroom, I had an office and a cart. Believe it or not, back then, I was happy to have a teaching position because they were tough to get in old Michigan.

New teacher induction 

One thing I have always felt we needed to improve in is the induction process for teachers. So much goes into teaching (beyond the actual teaching) that it's important to bring everyone on board carefully. Simply explaining how to use a copy machine can make a new teacher's job so much easier. (Some of you are nodding in agreement and others are "shaking their heads." I know.) Who do you go for this or that? How does this happen? If we answer some of those questions ahead of time, or at least introduce the ideas, people will breathe easier.

Anyhow, as we are getting into an unprecedented area with fewer and fewer candidates for all of our educational openings, it now becomes imperative that we assist in bringing our new folks into the fold with a well-thought, specific plan to allow them to be successful, grow in the organization, and have a motivation to stick around.

We have to be clear. Always clear. 

Five thoughts

Now, more than ever, how we behave toward our staff will have an impact on the overall success of our team. I have five thoughts to share that I think are going to impact education like we haven't seen before. These thoughts are mostly generated by my understanding of rural education; however, in talking to many colleagues throughout Michigan, these thoughts resonate nearly everywhere.

1. The pool for many positions is shallow, so schools will find ways to create an additional candidate pool. Sometimes schools have candidates for open positions, but sometimes they don't. Schools are in the predicament of hiring people who previously might not have received an interview. Many of my colleagues share stories like this. So, if our human resources are not where we need them to be, then we have to do an incredible job as an organization — school district — to assist them in becoming successful educators. The pool is going to affect the overall landscape of education, because …
2. School districts are in the new era where there is no choice but to give steps and incentives to teachers to bring them over from other school districts. This has happened in the past, but on a small scale. Now, giving steps in a compounding effect. It's not like giving a step to someone is like a bonus — the step becomes the new reality. We are entering an era where teachers could essentially be free agents. Now, rare is a school who can pony up the kind of money that Bryce Harper received, in fact, most schools can't even offer up what the Tigers offered to Al Kaline back in '74 (which he turned down). However, the time is here that districts will be openly negotiating with teachers from nearby and faraway districts to bring them on board. I know of at least two northern Michigan school districts that will pay someone's complete steps from their career to get them on board. This will lead to unprecedented movement in education because for the past 100 years, once we're working someplace long enough and have the seniority, it has been hard to move because a district might offer you a few steps. I know of one situation where a teacher accepted a buy–out from his district and had at least three or four other schools courting him. From what I have read and heard, he ended up in a good situation. 
3. School districts giving steps is going to lead to the "haves" and the "have nots" because not all districts can afford to pay steps, but they will have to or they will have a difficult time finding and retaining staff. School districts will have to find ways to incentive staff, whether it's through creative approaches to bonus pay, Google–like amenities in the staff lounge, paying more steps than usual, etc. That's a fine way to get someone to come on board, but what do school districts do to keep them? If districts really want the best teachers in front of students, then some things — even though Daniel Pink would argue that it's not all about the money — have to increase. But what if you are the school district that cannot afford to offer a signing bonus, or a few extra steps, or tuition reimbursement, or — the list could go on. Make no mistake, the shortage we are seeing is only the beginning. Most of Michigan's colleges who prepare tomorrow's educators are graduating fewer than half the number of teachers they graduated in 2009. For example, Michigan State is a highly respected teacher college. They graduated nearly 600 teachers a decade ago. To play apples to apples, nearly enough teachers to put one new teacher into most Michigan schools. This year, they will graduate 240 students. Barely enough to cover what we hear is the daily shortage in the Detroit schools. The teacher — ah, let's call it the educator shortage — is only at the tip of the ice burg. This could greatly impact school districts for years to come. 
4. Even though things are rapidly changing in ways we have never seen and did not predict, now we have to continue on a path to create professional learning communities, develop and deliver quality curriculum, and create and enact our missions and visions to change lives for kids for the better. Nothing about what we believe about educating children has changed, but the way we must go about it has been greatly altered. 
5. So, if we have under–qualified and not–quite–prepared teachers joining the ranks, and we have a great many leaders who are nearing retirement age, who is going to fill the leadership voids? We have to become organizations that grow people. Jim Collins work regarding "good to great" organizations rings quite true now (again, more than ever) because school districts have to be developing future leaders. Sometimes, it appears, that we will have to develop future leaders at the same time we're trying to develop the same people to become quality teachers. The task at hand is real. The shortage is brutal. And our job is to prepare kids for tomorrow's world.