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Short meetings could encourage teachers to stay on the job

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A single, 10-minute meeting between teachers and their principals can increase teacher job satisfaction, our new research shows. This increase in job satisfaction could potentially encourage teachers to stay in the profession longer, thereby reducing turnover and potentially saving school districts hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Our pilot study in the Journal of Leadership, Equity, and Research.

By combining surveys and digital conferencing to gauge how teachers felt before and after they met with their principals, we implemented a novel research design that, to the best of our knowledge, has never been attempted previously. The three teachers who had the meetings were compared to four teachers who did not meet with their principals.

Although there are many factors, such as relatively low salaries and from colleagues, that , teachers also frequently mention as a major reason for leaving the profession. Due to increasing demands on school administrators' time, a commitment of only 10 minutes could have a lot of appeal if later on, that 10 minutes can save countless hours that would otherwise be spent on attracting and hiring new teachers to replace the ones that leave.

Half of U.S. teachers . These early departures occur most often in .

Very often these schools have . In terms of subject matter, to find qualified math and , as well as teachers who are certified to teach English language learners.

Studies have also shown that many schools with lower student achievement .

While our study involved 10-minute meetings, we recognize that need to do more than just hold these meetings to ensure they are supporting their teachers effectively. Recent research has shown that COVID-19 , placing greater demands on school principals to support their teachers.

Depending on the location, the is between US$10,000 and $20,000. Taken nationally, these costs amount to $7.3 billion annually that could be spent on facilities, programs, meals and supplies to directly assist students.

We are making plans to expand this intervention research to include a much larger population of teachers—500 from one state, to be exact—and administrators.

We also plan to investigate the role that social media plays in how the , and specifically aspiring teachers, view the teaching profession. Thirty years ago, burned-out teachers were limited in expressing their workplace challenges to friends, family and others in their local communities. With the advent of social media, however, they are able to broadcast these struggles to anyone with , across the country and around the world.

Determining the factors that contribute to the number of teachers who enter the profession is also just as important as keeping in their classrooms longer.

Provided by The Conversation

This article is republished from under a Creative Commons license. Read the .The Conversation

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