I can envision myself wanting to become a teacher as far back as I could remember. I have a vivid memory of my basement set up as a school room with a large chalkboard and “my students,” aka stuffed animals, in their seats listening attentively to the lesson I had prepared. If you’re a teacher you know you did this too ;). While in college as I was studying to become a teacher, I worked at a preschool teaching the littlest from the ages of 2-4. As soon as I graduated and I mean immediately, I wasted no time in scouting for a classroom teaching position and I eagerly began my career at the age of 22. I dedicated 15 years in this profession and taught in two states and two grades. I’ve seen teachers come and go, transform from positive to weary and leave the profession all together. My recent post, Why Teachers are Leaving The Profession Faster Than Ever, talks about why we’ll continue to see a rapid decline in the profession that teaches all other professions. Education majors are rethinking about becoming teachers and veteran teachers are burning out, looking for others way to do what they love outside of the traditional school system.

So what do we do about this? How do we keep teachers in this profession and get them to work for you? In both my opinion and experience, it all comes down to good leadership, school culture, one word by Ms. Aretha Franklin herself…R-E-S-P-E-C-T, and a little bit of appreciation.

I worked with many administrators in my career. Unfortunately this is due to the fact that the administrator turnover is just as high as the teacher turnover rate. According to the article, Good Leaders Make Good Schools, “Research suggests that it takes five to seven years for a principal to have full impact on a school, but most principals burn out and leave in four years or less.” This article also states that principals “build culture,” and it is the culture of the school that makes your teachers want to work for you and want to be there every day. Now what does it mean to build culture? The principal’s role is no longer staying behind the scenes balancing the school budget. From a teacher’s perspective, a good principal is a leader who works collaboratively with its teachers and students. One that greets parents, students and teachers every day and builds relationships with all stakeholders. From a teacher’s perspective, a good principal is visible and present in the building. They get to know their staff utilizing its teachers and support staff’s strengths to benefit the whole. They encourage, coach, mentor, lead, support and develop their teachers. No easy task for sure which is why you could understand how administrators are burning out too.  It certainly does take a great person to become a good leader in order to make a good school. It takes a good leader to build a positive culture and school climate that gets teachers to stay and to want to work for them.

The morale and the culture of the school is extremely important and often overlooked. Recently on Facebook a teacher asked this question, “What does your school do to boost teacher morale?” Here are some of the comments:

• Uhm. Nothing I guess
• We have a Social committee. A small group of volunteers that plan activities once a month to bring us together. we have a large faculty and staff (over 300). If you want to be a member you pay $12 a year dues and that helps to pay for the activities and they send cards for new babies, weddings, and deaths.
• Potluck – share food and eat together.
• Not much
• Nothing.
• I have the best administrator! He once wrote a letter to the parents called “Help me keep my teachers”. It was all about support and how we should be valued. I would not still be teaching if it wasn’t for him.
  Nothing.
• Weekly Popcorn Fridays! Admin team pops fresh popcorn for all to enjoy every Friday!
• Nothing I’m aware of …
• We have “Well-being week” twice a term. During well-being week, we are encourage to spend a little less time at school, there are no meetings, emails are limited, we have different staff activities each day, might be a staff raffle with some fun prizes, and the executive put on a staff breakfast (cooked – bacon & eggs, etc).
  Also, each week our principal pulls out 3 names from a ‘hat’ after our morning meeting, and those people get a coffee, hot chocolate, etc. from the principal. I’m pretty lucky.
• Nothing 😪
• Very little. Sometimes the odd chocolate treat in our pigeon holes. As a HoF I always provide afternoon tea for our department meetings. My staff are awesome and deserve to be treated and appreciated.
• Increase the number of classroom observations… sighs
• Um…
• Monthly lunches with fun themes, little gifts everyday of education week, lots of shout outs…
• We have a very supportive leadership team. A social committee also organizes social outings both after school on and off site (bowling, bbqs, high tea, restaurants, etc)
• We have a great admin. team who does big and small things to help us. During the first semester, all 4 of our admins. went around the building during last period delivering cold drinks (Coke, bottled water, etc.) and hand-written thank you notes to eac…See More
• Tell us that they aren’t making redundancies … yet!! And if we can also do x number of hrs extra without much fuss that would be good – and we’ll also bob in to observe you more often too but we don’t call it an observation it’s just a drop in / walk through- no feedback but we’ll make sure you’re in the shit if you’re not doing what we want you to be doing (in those 10 minutes) oh yeah we’ll also give you some ‘well being’ time during an inset day where you can color in or read for an hour (when you could be at home!!!!) Repeat after me ‘it is a silly job’
• Absolutely nothing. If anything they find ways to crush it. 😞
• Well…hmmm 😶
• hahaha good question. nothing but to demoralize us
• Nothing
• nothing
• nothing
• Periodic food trucks for lunch
• Remind us of our contract hours. Highlight our names on the sign in sheet if we are 1 minute late. Complete “Friday checks” every week to see if we have lesson plans for the next week, at least two grades in the grade book, have made parent contact, and are tracking special ed accommodations. They also give out letters of concerns to go in teachers files at least once a week. They remind us to teach bell to bell in incessant emails. They require us to plan in a common room every day for 45 minutes with our department. They remind us that per contract…. fill in the blank, on a weekly basis.
• 1% pay raise while the superintendent received 17% over the last 2 years.
• A 2 days team building at the mountains… 😊
• Nada
• Zip.
• At most schools were I have worked, the teachers are taken for granted. They are not supposed to ask questions, or make comments to improve their system. The teachers´salary is low, the hours are long, and basically it becomes a dull routine.
• There was an outbreak of norovirus at the university I work at in China a few weeks ago and an emergency meeting was called. The department that looks after the foreign teachers head said, “don’t get ill.” I put my hand up and asked if we would lose pay if we were ill. She said we would. I asked if she thought that was a bit unfair. She then went on to say, “If you don’t like it, you can move to another school.” This was in front of all of the teachers.

This is an interesting combination of results that vary from school to school, state to state, country to country. School culture and climate is essential for both teacher and student success. It’s the culture and climate that drives teachers to work hard, to work for the good of the school and to be your champions. Fortunately there are teachers who care deeply about boosting staff morale and the culture of schools. Suzanne Ash at CreateEducateInspire creates Staff Morale Boosters. These include staff morale surveys, coupons, shout outs, challenges and more to keep the positivity flowing at her school. You could check out her resources here to spread some appreciation, kindness and positivity to build culture in your school too.

Good leaders make good schools but there are no good schools without good teachers. Showing and expressing appreciation goes a long way both personally and professionally. I always think of the phrases, “You get more bees with honey” and “happy wife= happy life,” but in this case, “happy teachers=happy students=happy school,” which as a result will lead to overall better teacher and student performance. It’s pretty easy to show or tell someone how much they are appreciated. It’s the little things that can turn it all around for teachers. For example, telling new teachers that their hard work in learning the new curriculum, standards and building student relationships has not gone unnoticed or praise the veteran teachers for their continuous professional development and for wearing so many hats at school. Respecting teachers time with quality professional development, staff and faculty meetings that are an effective use of time, and not demanding work to be done during personal family time is all so important. Let’s not wait until May to show some teacher appreciation. Show a little appreciation and thanks everyday. You’ll see that if teachers are treated with appreciation and respect they’ll happily do more because that’s what teachers do. By nature, teachers are hard working and dedicated individuals and want to do what’s in the best interest of their students and school.

So if  good leaders make good schools and they strive to build a culture and climate of respect and appreciation, I think that we’ll have more happy teachers staying in this profession. Imagine being a fly on the wall in the so called “teacher’s lounge” and hearing, “I love this school, I couldn’t imagine working anywhere else.” That’s how you know you have happy teachers and that’s how you’ll get them to work for you.

What are your thoughts? How does your school or workplace build culture and climate that encourages employees to work for them?

Need support? Visit the Forums to ask questions, share ideas and products. There are so many fantastic ideas and products posted there so be sure to check them out.