Factors influencing the retention of teachers of color

Abstract

Retaining teachers of color has been a problem in Cecil County Public Schools (CCPS) that I encountered when I started working there as a school-level leader in July 2016. This Education Leadership Portfolio (ELP) aimed to identify and understand the factors that influenced the retention of teachers of color in elementary schools, specifically elementary schools with a high percentage of students of color. To achieve this aim, I used surveys and interviews to gather data from school-level leaders and teachers to better understand potential factors that influenced teachers of color’s decision to stay or leave their school. Results of this ELP suggest that school context factors were the most influential in teachers of color’s decision to stay or leave their school. Survey and interview participants reported that having a sense of belonging, administrative support, cultural synchronicity, and humanistic commitment were the most prevalent school context factors that influenced teachers of color’s decision to stay in a school. School context factors like having an antagonistic work culture, feeling undervalued, being deprived of autonomy, and feeling the responsibility of being a teacher of color influenced teachers of color’s decision to leave a school. Based on these factors, I provide district- and school-level leaders with considerations on how to enhance the school context in order to retain more teachers of color. These considerations include: (a) using inclusive practices to improve the school work environment, (b) creating cohorts of teachers of color across a school district, (c) providing implicit bias training for school-level leaders and teachers, and (c) ensuring teachers of color have access to leadership opportunities at the school and district levels.