Admins can prepare their new teachers for success with these 8 practices

If you work in education, you don’t need another news article or statistic to tell you how many new teachers leave the profession (approximately 70% within their first five years). Even Veteran teachers are struggling with burnout in this post-COVID era of education.

As an administrator, you’re often on the frontlines of school policy changes and practices that could protect these teachers. That’s a lot of pressure! Especially if there are no programs in place already, where do you start? What kind of changes do you make that will actually make a positive impact?

We want to take some of that mental load off you and share tried-and-true tips from former administrators and trainers at Eduphoria on how to retain your first-year teachers. In this blog, learn 10 tips that work to protect teachers from burning out in their first year of teaching.

#1: Establish a first-year teacher academy

Establishing a “first-year teacher academy” can be a great way to embed support into your school community. As Dr. Wagner states, there are a few reasons you may want to consider creating one:

• You can develop specific, relevant professional development topics for new teachers and space them out to ensure they are as timely as possible.
• First-year teachers can sync with one another and learn from each other.

Let’s talk about each of these in more depth.

Timely, specific professional development for first-year teachers

Teachers need to be able to walk away with actionable strategies for the time of year and problems specific to their role. If they walk away with even one new strategy or skill, then the course or conference has achieved its purpose.

Here are some recommendations for timeline-specific courses you could develop for your new teachers:

• Classroom management - Before the start of the year, or early in the year
• Software implementation - Before the start of the year, or early in the year
• Writing and creating lessons - Before the start of the year, or early in the year (depending on how many resources and pre-written lessons were given to the teacher)
• Assessment writing - Before the first assessment
• Goal creation and choosing skills to develop - Mid-semester one
• Tracking professional growth and encouraging students to create goals -  
• Data analysis - Before the first grading period is up, or shortly after 
• Differentiation - Semester two
• Parent-teacher relationship building - Around parent-teacher conference season, October
• Auditing and modifying lessons - At the end of the year, early summer

There are endless topics that a first-year teacher might find interesting, but be sure to tackle the most important ones first, such as classroom management, curriculum creation, assessment, and data analysis.

First-year teacher sync

It’s important to pair teachers with a more experienced mentor, too, but new teachers often learn best from each other. Who knows better than someone in your same situation how to overcome your most pressing hurdles?

Problem-solving is a huge bonus for these sync times, but they can also vent, encourage each other, and celebrate wins. It may even help to make these get-togethers more structured (such as a new-teacher PLC) so they can cover all these important topics together.

#2: Get mentors and trusted advisors in their classroom to observe outside of scheduled evaluations

For new and experienced teachers alike, there is nothing more stressful than having an evaluation when you already feel like you aren’t doing a good job. Yet, we know how integral evaluations and feedback are to the growth of your teachers and students.

So, how do you create a culture where casual evaluations and feedback are not just expected but welcomed? First, you have to create an evaluation system that actually achieves its intended result: growing and encouraging teachers. Plus, creating an effective evaluation system helps establish trust and foster a positive professional growth environment.

If your overall evaluation system is anticipated with dread, then adding casual observations into the cycle might be an excruciating uphill battle.

So, if your evaluation system is viewed positively, then you can start implementing casual observations.

Here are a few suggestions for how to create this system:

• Pair new teachers with a more experienced mentor teacher and get with them to help schedule casual observation and feedback sessions.
• Ask PLCs to schedule team member observations.
• Set expectations for a “casual” observation, such as worksheets with the intended areas to observe. This will ensure that positive feedback and encouragement are included in these sessions, that the feedback is relevant and specific, and that everyone goes into these observations understanding the process and end result.

#3: Differentiate your professional development

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Paige Parker, an experienced former educator and current trainer on our Professional Learning and Coaching team, chose this reel to sum up her feelings on preparing new teachers for success.

Teachers don’t stop becoming individuals just because they’re adults. As educators, we believe and know that students learn in different ways, so why are all PD courses and conferences built the same way?

All of the ways we differentiate for students would work with your teachers. Here are some examples:

• Multiple methods of lesson delivery, including verbal, written, and audio/video
• The option to do independent work/study or small group work/study
• Providing varying levels of complexity and depth based on the individual’s prior knowledge and experience
• Allowing the option for in-person or asynchronous learning
• Include ways for teachers to explore the content in ways that are meaningful and interesting to them
• Including multiple projects or portfolio options for teachers/staff to demonstrate their learning

Taking steps to differentiate for the unique brains in your school can make a big difference in skill acquisition and long-term growth. Your students will see the benefits of differentiated professional development for your teachers.

#4: Teach them how to stay organized and build a routine

First-year teachers are often struggling to keep their heads above water with the most visible, everyday tasks, such as lesson plans and grading. You probably remember how long it took you to work out your own system and establish a routine for “resetting” as Dr. Ross describes. These "admin" tasks (answering emails, doing paperwork, etc.) as we might call it, are often a more invisible struggle.

If you help teachers to establish a repeatable schedule, it takes the trial-and-error struggle out of it. They can focus that energy on executing those tasks rather than on creating a routine for them. Bonus: they don’t take this work home.

Here are some ways you can help teachers organize their tasks, get into a routine, and create a repeatable process:

• Go over important dates on the district schedule, such as when grades are due, major assessment dates, and unit ends. Then plan some important planning milestones around them, such as data analysis days and PLC discussions.
• Help them establish a “weekly reset” day to prepare for the next week. Create a to-do list for this day, including tasks like printing resources, locating digital resources for lessons, and completing the activities.
• Help them establish a “daily reset” routine. Tasks they might be tempted to do overnight before the next school day can be added to this to-do list. Examples of items to allot time for: Grading the day’s activities, following up on exit/entry tickets, and internalizing the next day’s lessons.
• Ask them to consider when they will respond to emails or make phone calls, and encourage them to keep this to a specific time each day or week. It can be easy to say, “I’ll just respond to a couple of emails,” and find yourself out of time during your planning period.

#5: Help them to get embedded in their community

In the first few weeks of school, they don’t have the extra time in their day to wander around the neighborhood looking for lunch. You can help them make the most of their breaks and time away from work by giving them an expert’s introduction to the neighborhood. By getting familiar with the crowd favorites, they can also feel embedded in their community without the testing period of “Which Taco Bell has the best 5-Layer Burrito?”

Another way to embed your newbies is to create a resource list of faculty members who can help them with specific problems. If teachers are aware they’re being given a superlative, they’ll also be ready and willing to help when someone wanders into their classroom with a question.

This is encouraging to your new teachers, but it also puts a sense of responsibility, pride, and community on your veteran teachers to have a role and an identity within their school.

#6: When possible, give them instructional materials to teach and adapt rather than asking them to start from scratch

You know this well: Writing curriculum and teaching curriculum are two very different skills. First-year teachers are often evaluated on their ability to handle a classroom, deliver the material, and interact with students in real time. These are the most important skills for a new teacher to master. Writing curriculum is often a more complex, time-consuming process that will be much easier for them after they’ve spent a year with the standards and materials they’re expected to teach.

You can make their lives infinitely easier by sourcing lessons, resources, and materials for them, either through state-level instructional material or through “crowd-funding” with their PLCs. 

Experienced teachers often forget how much time is lost and how much frustration builds up over simply locating a resource in Google Drive. Having this organized for them, so all they have to do is internalize the lesson, deliver the material, and reflect on their delivery, simplifies the process of growth so they can focus on those important skills.

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#7: Protect their time off at all costs

One of the fastest ways to burn out is to blur the lines between work and home life. 

If your new teachers never get a chance to reset, they’ll be living in the stress of their jobs 24/7. With proper planning and organization, you can help ensure that they use their time off to be off of work.

Here are some ways you can help protect this boundary for your new teachers:

• Encourage new teachers to protect their planning periods, and make everyone aware that you shouldn’t walk in on someone’s planning period to chat unless it’s been agreed upon ahead of time.
• Help teams establish productive and supportive structures for their PLC, so these meetings help your new teacher knock major items off of their to-do list.
• Walk through daily and weekly reset schedules with them, so they can plan their grading, planning, and analysis time at work.
• Don’t assign new teachers to after-school posts, such as football game concession stands.
• If budget allows, pair your new teacher with an experienced teaching assistant who can help them manage their time and still support students.
• Establish sick-day expectations, and don’t make sick day coverage problems the teacher’s problem.

Expectations around time off often come from administrators. You can change the way your staff thinks about this time by creating a culture that protects work-life balance.

#8: Celebrate small victories early and often

You know another major factor in burnout? Feeling like you’re not good at your job. Praise and encouragement are armor against that “I’m not cut out for this” feeling.

Here are some small celebrations that would mean the world to your new teachers:

• Progress through the year, e.g., “We’re exactly halfway through the school year! Way to show up and be there for your students!”
• Assessment milestones, e.g., “You made it through your first district assessment!”
• Handling a rowdy student or class
• Making parent phone calls and keeping that line of communication open
• Turning in grades on time
• Delivering a stellar lesson
• Offering emotional support to a student or coworker
• Demonstrating progress in a professional or personal goal
• Getting a certificate or finishing a training

If you don’t have time to stop in on your new teachers every week, leave a sticky note, send an email, and make sure your mentor teachers are visiting their mentees often to provide encouragement.

Reach out to our team for more information on solutions created for educators by educators

Whether you’re an administrator at the district, school, or team level, you have a diverse and overwhelming array of responsibilities. We want to empower you to make the impact you dream of making on your staff. The right tools can take the excess time and frustration out of those impactful, data-driven decisions. Want to talk about how we can take the frustration out of data analysis, curriculum management, or staff evaluations? Hit that demo button at the top or bottom of the screen and get in touch.

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