Mississippi Teacher Retention Survey offers key findings for educator workforce recruitment and support

The survey gives key findings for strengthening the educator workforce statewide.

On Wednesday, the Mississippi Division of Schooling (MDE) launched its 2021-22 Instructor Retention Survey, which was carried out inside MDE’s Workplace of Educating and Main and offers pattern information on recruitment, onboarding, help, group involvement, faculty management and compensation amongst Mississippi academics.

Out of 31,641 Mississippi academics within the 2021-22 faculty 12 months, 5,856 accomplished the survey from April 18, via July 28, this 12 months. 

The nameless survey included 71 questions and took about 25 minutes to finish.

“Key survey findings present MDE’s efforts to strengthen instruction via methods comparable to Mississippi Tutorial Supplies Matter  and Mississippi Connects have a constructive impression,” MDE stated in a launch. “The survey additionally revealed academics primarily study from different academics, the Skilled Progress System (PGS) ought to drive skilled studying and college management is the most important think about instructor retention and attrition.”

Key findings from the survey embody:

• Whereas 64% of academics reported feeling valued because of the brand new instructor pay elevate for the 2022-23 faculty 12 months, solely 29% reported they have been glad with their wage.
• When describing steps of their hiring course of, 79% of academics reported finishing an in-person interview with the principal. Far fewer academics – 3% and a couple of%, respectively – reported the method included demonstrating a educating lesson or an exercise utilizing scholar information.
• 51% of survey respondents famous they heard about open positions from a colleague or buddy, whereas 3% grew to become conscious of positions from on-line job boards or a job truthful.
• 47% of academics have been influenced to use for jobs based mostly on their geographic location, and 28% utilized after having a dialog with a college chief. Solely 2% utilized for jobs based mostly on a recruitment occasion.

Some methods that MDE will likely be implementing to deal with instructor retention and attrition embody: Aligning the Digital and Face-to-Face Skilled Growth Catalog to Skilled Progress System domains and requirements and persevering with the Mississippi Instructor Residency program, which features a formal mentor part.

MDE may even be offering a Mentoring and Induction Toolkit that any faculty or district can use to create an area mentoring and induction program for brand spanking new academics and their mentors and updating the Orientation to College Management (OSL) credit wanted for conversion to a typical, renewable administrator license.