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Upbeat has released a new research report shedding light on the critical impact between belonging and wellbeing and teacher retention. Titled "Belonging & Wellbeing: Key Pieces of the Teacher Retention Puzzle", the report highlights the crucial importance of supporting educators' sense of belonging and wellbeing as one of the strongest relationships with teacher retention.

Authored by Dr. Havala Hanson and Dr. Matthew A. Kraft, the report reviews responses from over 15,000 teachers on Upbeat's Engagement Survey for Instructional Staff in fall 2021. Upbeat's survey consists of 23 research-based categories to improve teacher retention, including Belonging & Wellbeing. Dr. Hanson and Dr. Kraft found that a 10 percentage point increase in positive perceptions of Belonging & Wellbeing on the survey is correlated with a 6 percentage point increase in school retention rates.

Newark City Schools (NCS) in Ohio is prioritizing teacher retention across the district and has launched a new partnership with Upbeat, an innovative teacher retention organization led by former teachers and school leaders. Like many districts across the country, NCS has seen increasing challenges with employee retention. The new initiative reflects the district's commitment to address the factors contributing to retention and empowering staff members with opportunities aimed at improving district culture and climate, as noted in its strategic plan passed on July 14, 2022.

"As a district, we are committed to working proactively on climate and culture for our staff and students. More and more teachers are leaving mid-year, and it's crucial for us to understand why that's happening and how we can improve it," said David L. Lewis, Superintendent of Newark City Schools. "Working with Upbeat will allow us to listen to our staff, improve systems and strategies, and, in turn, improve staff satisfaction and retention."

Austin Independent School District (AISD) in Texas announced a partnership with Upbeat, an innovative teacher retention organization led by former teachers and school leaders. The district is taking several steps to strengthen teacher retention. Their current proposed budget is focused on elevating teacher pay alongside other initiatives, with the goal of becoming the highest paying district in Central Texas in the next two years.

In the district's 2020-2025 strategic plan, one of the district's values includes "Engaging our employees and inviting their collaboration to make AISD a great place to work," with Teacher & Employee Well-Being as a priority focus area. Upbeat collects data on well-being within their comprehensive survey examining 24 research-based categories.

Tigard-Tualatin School District 23J (TTSD), located in Oregon, announced a partnership with Upbeat, an innovative teacher retention organization run by former teachers and school leaders. The new initiative reflects the district’s commitment to identify and address influences on teacher experience and retention.

Staff and climate and culture are stated priorities represented in the District Strategic Plan. TTSD focuses on “hiring, supporting, and retaining catalysts for learning” in the areas of staff wellness, professional development, and increased effectiveness and satisfaction. Upbeat collects data on each of these focus areas within its comprehensive survey that examines categories based on research. This data helps TTSD track its progress toward goals as guided by its strategic plan.

Fairfield County School District and Greenville County Schools have increased teacher retention and engagement in a partnership with Upbeat, an innovative teacher retention organization led by former teachers and school leaders.

Both South Carolina districts began their individual partnerships with Upbeat in 2018. Greenville started with a pilot of two middle schools and expanded district wide for the 2019-20 school year.

Within the first two years of partnership with Upbeat, Fairfield County’s turnover rate decreased from 16.8% to 11% between 2018 and 2020. Greenville County reduced teacher turnover from 11% to 10.2% in their first year working with Upbeat.

Two new surveys of teachers and school administrators confirm some of the worst fears about the switch to distance learning since the pandemic struck: The vast majority of teachers could not teach all the material they were supposed to, teacher confidence plummeted in schools without supportive working conditions, and fewer than half of teachers in high schools, high-poverty schools and schools serving a majority of children of color were able to contact their students.

Upbeat, the nation's leading K-12 teacher engagement and retention tool, announced this week the launch of a "Teaching from Home" survey to gather information on educators' experiences with remote teaching due to COVID-19 school closures. The first-of-its-kind survey reflects feedback from district leaders across the country who expressed their need to gather information on teacher support and well-being during this unique time in education.

Greenville County Schools (GCS) in South Carolina announced today a partnership with Upbeat, an innovative teacher retention organization led by former teachers and school leaders. The new initiative reflects the district's commitment to address the factors contributing to teacher retention, as noted in its latest strategic plan, BluePrint 2023. 

Upbeat will equip GCS leaders with key insights into the district's current efforts by engaging teachers in a comprehensive survey examining research-based categories, including school climate, hiring and onboarding, professional development, and teacher appreciation. GCS is deploying Upbeat surveys following the successful completion of a pilot during the 2018-19 school year -- which resulted in a uniquely high 90% participation rate and better data on the issues that currently impact teacher recruitment and retention, such as leadership, communication, evaluation, expectations, and safety.

New case study authored by Dr. Nicole S. Simon, Jaclyn L. Corin, and Katelyn A. Chizek explores innovative strategies employed by Kalamazoo Public Schools to enhance teacher retention and cultivate a supportive professional environment.

Recognizing the crucial role that teachers play in student success, Kalamazoo has taken proactive steps to address teacher retention challenges. By leveraging Upbeat's research-backed engagement surveys and coaches, Kalamazoo maintained a teacher retention rate of 86% for the 2022-2023 school year, still far above the historical statewide average of 80% from 2016-21.

Jefferson County Public Schools in Kentucky announced their expanded partnership across 152 schools with Upbeat, an innovative teacher retention organization led by former teachers and school leaders. The district began working with Upbeat in fall 2020, focused on improving retention in 18 of the district’s Accelerated Improvement Schools. Since the beginning of the partnership, teacher retention has grown 12.7% across the AIS (CSI) schools, identified by the district through the Kentucky Accountability System.

Upbeat will administer a comprehensive, research-based survey to certified staff across the 152 JCPS schools this fall to measure growth in research-based categories that impact teacher retention, including school climate, hiring and onboarding, professional development, teacher voice/leadership, and teacher appreciation. Extensive research identified the strongest correlates of teacher retention.

Rome City School District (NY) announced a new partnership with Upbeat, an innovative teacher retention organization led by former teachers and school leaders. The collaboration reflects the district's commitment to retain highly qualified faculty and staff members in order to provide an education of equity and excellence for all students.

The collaboration reflects the district's commitment to retain highly qualified faculty and staff members in order to provide an education of equity and excellence for all students.

Upbeat will equip Kalamazoo leaders with key insights into the district's current efforts by engaging teachers in a comprehensive and confidential survey examining research-based categories, including school climate, hiring and onboarding, professional development, and teacher appreciation.

The district implemented Upbeat's engagement survey this spring -- which resulted in an 85% participation rate. The district was provided with improved data on the issues that currently impact teacher recruitment and retention, such as leadership, communication, evaluation, expectations, and safety. Thus far, 92% of Kalamazoo district and school administrators feel that Upbeat's data gave them insights to develop and accomplish their goals as leaders.

Schools with more supportive working conditions were far more successful at helping their teachers maintain a sense of success during COVID-19-related school closures, according to a multi-state survey conducted by researchers Matthew Kraft (Brown University) and Nicole Simon (CUNY).

The survey, conducted in partnership with Upbeat, also found that mid-career teachers particularly struggled to balance work and home responsibilities this spring, while veteran teachers were significantly more likely to report discomfort with remote learning technology.

Associate Professor Matthew Kraft co-developed a survey to help school districts better understand and respond to teachers' experience working remotely due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Their findings suggest that the sudden move to remote teaching has created substantial challenges for teachers’ work and limited the degree to which students can engage in learning. Mid-career teachers -- those most likely to have children at home -- have particularly struggled to balance their work responsibilities with their home lives during the pandemic.

As some districts struggle to reduce staff turnover, a new company is using data analytics to help schools respond to problems with employee attrition and engagement. 

Over the past two years, Upbeat has surveyed teachers and other school employees across the country to evaluate employee engagement and satisfaction. Based on survey results, Upbeat creates individualized toolkits to help administrators improve their employee retention rates.

The Institute for Education Innovation, a national school superintendent think tank that serves as the bridge between district leaders and the K-12 industry to develop solutions to the greatest challenges in education announced the finalists for the third annual Supes' Choice Awards; Upbeat was announced as in finalists in the Operations/Finance/HR Solution category. The Supes' Choice Awards honor the most innovative education products and solutions, and are the only education industry awards judged exclusively by school district superintendents.

The Clarksville-Montgomery County School System in Tennessee announced a partnership with Upbeat, an innovative teacher retention organization led by former teachers and school leaders. The district has several initiatives for employee recruitment and retention aligned with the 22-23 Strategic Work Goals for Maximizing Employee Capacity, including the first apprenticeship program for teaching in the country registered by the Department of Labor and a diversity mentoring program.

Upbeat will administer a comprehensive, research-based survey administration to certified and classified staff across 39 Clarksville-Montgomery schools this fall to measure growth in research-based categories that impact teacher retention, including school climate, hiring and onboarding, professional development, and teacher appreciation.

Upbeat was awarded a new contract with Carrollton-Farmers Branch ISD for an employee engagement survey to support the district’s commitment to retaining and supporting effective teachers, as noted in Carrollton-Farmers Branch ISD's ten-year strategic plan.

Carrollton-Farmers Branch ISD is a member of both the Central Texas Purchasing Alliance (CTPA) and the Educational Purchasing Cooperative of North Texas (EPCNT). Member districts of the CTPA and EPCNT are able to adopt a similar contract to partner with Upbeat on teacher retention without conducting a new bidding process.

Upbeat has worked with the district since 2019 and will continue to equip Carrollton-Farmers Branch leaders with key insights into the district's current efforts by engaging staff in a comprehensive survey examining research-based categories, including staff appreciation, teacher autonomy, parent & teacher trust and teacher collaboration.

Upbeat released a new report titled “Teachers’ Perceptions of Their Working Conditions During the Pandemic” that summarizes the experiences of 11,442 educators teaching during the Fall semester of 2020 across in person, remote and hybrid settings. Upbeat collected responses to their Teacher Engagement Survey from 303 schools in 17 districts in New York, Louisiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, South Carolina, Kentucky, Virginia, Texas, Georgia and Vermont between October 13, 2020 and January 4, 2021. The report, written by Dr. Matt Kraft, Dr. Nicole Simon and Dr. Maleka Donaldson, reveals that teaching mode or the method in which teachers were delivering instruction this past Fall had a strong impact on teachers’ working environment.

This post is part of our series entitled Teaching and Learning During a Pandemic, in which we invite guest authors to reflect on the challenges of the Coronavirus pandemic for teaching and learning. Our guests today are Matthew A. Kraft, Associate Professor of Education and Economics at Brown University and Research Director at Upbeat, and Nicole S. Simon, director in the Office of K-16 Initiatives at the City University of New York. Other posts in the series are compiled here.

The Georgia Association of School Personnel Administrators has awarded the Newton County School System Human Resources Department a Gold Award of Excellence for “Best in Class” in the area of Retention Practices/Recognition. 

According to NCSS Human Resources Director, Nyree Sanders, the award is the culmination of the department’s focused efforts to improve the retention rate of high-performing personnel as outlined in the school district’s 2018-2023 Strategic Plan.

This spring, America’s schools underwent an unprecedented experiment: tens of millions of students stopped going into school, and instead began receiving instruction remotely.

So — now that the school year is over almost everywhere — how much remote learning actually happened? And who was served best, and worst, by this new approach?

Definitive answers are hard to come by, and national data on student learning is virtually nonexistent. But more than a dozen national surveys of teachers, parents, students, and school administrators conducted over the past few months offer the clearest initial tally of successes and failures.