Many schools and districts around the world struggle with retaining qualified teachers. Check out these concerning findings:

• Almost half of the teachers in the U.S. are actively looking for a different job or watching for opportunities.[1]
• In Germany and France, less than 5% of teachers leave schools within the first five years. However, in Sweden, national statistics show that 32% of recently graduated teachers are no longer active in Swedish schools after five years. This percentage jumps to between 30% and 50% in the U.S. and U.K.[2]
• On average, districts in the U.S. spend more than $20,000 on each new hire. This revolving door costs public schools up to $2.2 billion annually.[3]

Addressing teacher turnover matters because it is not only is costly; it has serious consequences for student achievement. Retaining high-performing teachers is critical to a productive classroom. Research published in the American Education Research Journal found that “students in grade levels with higher turnover score lower in both English language arts (ELA) and math.”[4] This negative impact doesn’t just affect the students in the new teachers’ classrooms, but all students in a school with high teacher turnover rates.[5]

While some countries are focused on increasing recruitment into the teaching profession, others believe a more efficient strategy is to instead concentrate on retaining and supporting active teachers. According to the leading expert Dr. Richard Ingersoll, “Putting it metaphorically, it is better to patch the holes in the bucket before trying to fill it up.”[6]

Solutions to Reduce Teacher Burnout

While many factors can cause teacher burnout, the number one reason teachers leave the profession is due to dissatisfaction. Research recommends that supporting and valuing teachers is just as vital as tackling workload and long working hours to keep job fulfillment high and improve teacher retention.[7] Let’s review two common causes of dissatisfaction and how LocknCharge provides solutions to help patch your bucket before your school loses more water:

Teachers are Working Harder than Ever Before

Educators in the U.S. reported spending more time teaching than those in other countries. U.S. teachers work longer than the contracted workday, spending more than 50 hours per week on instructional duties.[8] In England, teachers are working 46 hours per week. Both are well above the international average of 38 hours each week, with 20 hours spent teaching.[9]

LocknCharge Solution: When compared to a LocknCharge top-loading Cart with Baskets, one cabinet-style cart can gobble up an additional 70+ hours of class time per year, simply in passing out and collecting devices. LocknCharge baskets have a profound impact on class time.

Our unique and innovative basket designs not only keep tablets safe, but they also reduce the time spent by teachers in distributing devices, as well as the time spent by children queuing up to put them away.

This means teaching can happen faster — saving over two weeks of instructional time per cart each year! Calculate the time savings of leveraging a durable, top-loading basket-based cart from LocknCharge.

Teachers Feel Unsupported and Undervalued

Even though they’re working harder, nearly two-thirds of teachers in developed countries still feel undervalued.[10] That number jumps to over 90% of teachers in France, Spain and Sweden who think their profession is not respected.

LocknCharge Solution: If teachers feel unsupported as new technology is introduced, their attitudes can quickly go from excitement to frustration. However, when educators feel supported by their district, they know that their personal well being is important.

1. Include teachers in decision making. When teachers are included in big initiatives, they feel valued. One great example of collaboration is the University of Oklahoma K20 Center. The Center encourages a school or district to bring leadership members, IT staff, and teachers spanning different grade levels to their EdTech demo room as a way to empower decision making within the group. This encourages ideas from all angles to be considered in a constructive manner.
2. Support teachers when new technology is introduced by deploying an efficient mobile device workflow in the classroom to mitigate that frustration and improve teacher satisfaction. Innovative features in a charging solution like charging status indicator lights and mobile device baskets can simplify daily device distribution — giving teachers more control over how they use their class time.
3. Provide training for new technology. Study after study shows that teachers do not feel secure in their ability to incorporate high-level technology in teaching and learning. By creating a roadmap and a training program for new tech, teachers are much more likely to adopt new ways of teaching through tech.
4. Give teachers the opportunity to shine. For more reasons than we could ever count, teachers are incredible. They not only have high expectations for their students, but also for themselves. When teachers are given the time and space to use their talents, the sky is the limit for their curriculum and their students. What could your teachers accomplish if they were able to get back two weeks of class time per year?

Over the past 20 years, the needs of teachers and students have guided the designs of our mobile device charging carts and stations to relieve pain points that are specific to challenges in education. After talking to thousands of educators around the world, we’ve jotted down 9 Reasons Why Schools & Teachers Love LocknCharge.

Sources:

[1] Why Teachers Quit – WeAreTeachers

[2] Teacher attrition the first five years – A multifaceted image – ScienceDirect

[3] Teacher Attrition Costs United States Up to $2.2 Billion Annually – Alliance for Excellent Education

[4] How Teacher Turnover Harms Student Achievement – American Education Research Journal

[5] Why Addressing Teacher Turnover Matters – Learning Policy Institute

[6] Teacher attrition the first five years – A multifaceted image – ScienceDirect

[7] Improve job satisfaction to stop teachers quitting the classroom – Nuffield Foundation

[8] New Data Shows Educators Work 11 Hours Overtime per Week – Tsheets

[9] New teacher survey – LA School Report

[10] Two-thirds of teachers feel undervalued, says OECD study – BBC News