The Alaska Department of Education and Early Development has created an online tool that will help districts, schools as well as elected officials deal with the high rate in teacher turnover. It launched The teacher recruitment and Retention Playbook in September.
The state established an working group to tackle teacher retention and recruitment beginning in the month of April, 2020. The group formulated recommendations that were compiled into the playbook.
Barbara Adams, a consultant for the state, was involved in working in the development of recommendations. She explained that, after generating an array of ideas on the hiring of teachers and their retention, the team decided that incorporating recommendations for all who is involved in education was essential.
They have come up with the playbook, a web-based document that is organized by subject and contains possible options for actions to be undertaken by various organizations like communities, school districts and the state’s department of education and legislators.
“It is a 50-page hyperlinked Google Doc, which seems quite large and could be difficult to grasp,” Adams said. “But we’ve attempted to create smaller hyperlinks that allow users to only access a small section at a moment.”
The playbook has a variety of strategies for different stakeholders’ levels. explained.
Adams explained it using the illustration in restructuring retirement options, which the working group recognized as a major area. The document offers suggestions on how DEED as well as the community as well as elected representatives can assist in achieving the goal of enhancing retirement options for teachers.
Sally Stockhausen and other board members expressed interest and their support for the project at the State Board of Education meeting on Thursday.
“It was a huge worry for us all that this would take a huge undertaking and that it would end up in the binder, so be more precise, and end up on a shelf and nothing would be changed,” she said. “And that’s why I want to challenge our board members to take the time and to look into the areas that we might be able to do… or to take the things that we can on and not let this be something that disappears and never comes back.”
Representative of the student Felix Myers said he was happy to see the book explore ways to ease teacher recertification requirements and the introduction of specific benefits. Both are issues for parents as teachers.
Board of Education Chair James Fields noted that he was able to see opportunities to alter the system before the body’s next meeting.
“There’s some things that the department can do immediately,” he said.
“I recommend that the commissioner take a look and locate the issues that are simple that you can get started on right now.”
He outlined the costs of becoming an educator as well the website of the state as possible areas of attack.
Department of Education and Early Development Commissioner Deena Bishop said that the task did not aim to identify any particular organization as the one responsible for maintaining teachers within the state.
“Teacher retention as well as recruitment doesn’t just belong to DEED and doesn’t just belong to school districts; it’s a community issue,” she said.
She also said that community-level considerations should include whether there is a housing option for teachers.
“We’re all doing our best,” Bishop said. “So we’re trying to concentrate on doing the right thing.”
The department is planning to bring the book out on the road to various Alaska communities to teach people how to utilize the playbook.
This article first appeared in Alaska Beacon and is republished here with permission.
