The Links Between Teacher Retention, Test Scores, and Housing Access
The issues facing Richmond Public Schools and the City of Richmond are systemic. So are their solutions.
At the July 18th Richmond School Board meeting, it was announced that by the end of school year, 552 teachers - over a quarter of the total - resigned. In the year prior, 406 teachers resigned. To address the shortage and to recruit more teachers to the district, the School Board voted to pass an initiative by the RPS administration that would give a bonus up to $10,000 for new hires. Superintendent Kamras also announced the creation of a “teacher retention task force,” and board member Jonathan Young put forward a seven point teacher retention plan. Young’s plan included the prioritization of staff evaluation of building administrators, more school-based budget decisions, de emphasis on detailed lesson planning, ending student access to cell phones at the secondary level, and undoing curriculum changes that have been unpopular with teachers. Young is wise to include curriculum since the current English Language Arts curriculum, EL, is unaligned to Virginia SOLs, overly rigid and inflexible, as well as an ineffective use of funds and is not delivering adequate results in student test scores.
Perhaps most interesting, Young’s plan also included the need to, “celebrate rule breaking pertinent to teachers when in favor of remedying problems favorable to students." Unfortunately, since the Richmond Educator earlier reported on ongoing retaliation within the LIEP department for such rule breaking and advocacy for students, no action known to RPS LIEP teachers has been taken by the School Board or RPS administration regarding current reports of retaliation. While many of these points from Young favor teacher autonomy, the top down nature of such a plan will not stop the mass exodus of staff. Similarly, the suggestion of a teacher retention task force was met with skepticism by some RPS teachers. RPS music teacher Beth Almore says, “The collective bargaining team is the teacher retention task force. Workers have always known that unless something is spelled out in contract language, it’s unenforceable.”
As many Richmond Public Schools teachers and staff return to their worksites this week, it is amidst a shortage of still over 140 teachers, and the looming SOL data debate, as members of the School Board, RPS administration, Mayor Stoney and even Governor Youngkin point fingers to explain whose fault it is that RPS test scores are considerably lower than the neighboring counties. Rather than looking at root causes of trauma and poverty that cause students to miss school, struggle with behavior and attention, and otherwise not get their most basic needs met, Richmond Mayor Levar Stoney chose to lay blame on the singular School Board decision to not adopt a year round calendar. Rather than scapegoating responsibility to the democratically elected School Board that chose to continue with a traditional calendar after extensive student, parent and staff feedback, the Mayor as well as the Richmond City Council should do everything in their power to address Richmond’s shameful status as the eviction capital of Virginia, with the second highest eviction rate in the country. Below are examples of actions the City could take to begin to alleviate the effects of the housing crisis, which disproportionately affects Black and Latinx families, including many RPS students.
Despite school leaders and elected officials attempting to lay blame on each other, rank-and-file RPS workers know that the retention of staff and the academic struggles of their students are intrinsically linked. Further, when teachers resign mid-year due to workplace stress and lack of support, as many have, this too affects student tests scores when their continuity of instruction is interrupted, and they may then receive instruction from a long-term substitute. Poverty and the ongoing housing crisis in the city, coupled with the deskilling and micromanaging of teachers and staff continue to exacerbate both the issue of test scores and teacher retention. In order to address one, we must address the other. Both are problems that have long plagued the city and have been made worse by the pandemic. Neither problem will be remedied without systemic changes and without listening to those that are directly affected.
If RPS really wants to stop the exodus of teachers and staff, and also recruit and retain the best talent it can, we will need to start at the source – listen to the workers themselves. The retention steps below put forth by rank-and-file education workers can serve as a basis for that effort.
Ten Steps RPS Can Take to Retain Staff NOW:
1. Support collective bargaining to the fullest extent possible. As it stands, for the first collectively bargained contract that will last three years, the Richmond Education Association (REA) can choose two topics to bargain for and the RPS administration can present two of their own. This compromise was decided prior to the passing of the collective bargaining resolution in December 2021. Specifically, the resolution states, “During the first contract negotiated under this Resolution, each party will select two (2) topics to negotiate for a total of four (4) topics to be collectively bargained, unless the parties mutually agree to more topics.” RPS has elected to not choose topics of their own. We encourage the union and administration to take full advantage of the resolution language to include as many retention related issues as possible, since the conditions staff work in are the conditions students learn in.
2. Immediately end involuntary transfers and prioritize teacher choice in transfer policy. Don’t transfer teachers that don’t want to be transferred when their current position continues to be needed in their assigned work location. Full stop. There is no valid purpose in transferring someone that is happy where they are unless a decline in student enrollment merits them moving from that worksite and leveling must occur. When leveling is necessary, it should follow the procedure of volunteer transfers first, followed by seniority at their current worksite. Similarly, when teachers want to transfer to another RPS school at the end of each year, or during the year, let them. We continue to lose substantial numbers of staff to the counties because their transfer requests are ignored. We simply have too many vacancies to do otherwise.
3. Guarantee lunch. All full-time staff need 30 consecutive minutes of uninterrupted, unencumbered lunch time every day.
4. Guarantee planning. Per Virginia Code, elementary teachers are required to have at least 30 minutes of unencumbered planning every day, and secondary teachers are required to have at least 45 minutes, or one whole class period. Similarly, to allow for our students to receive adequate counseling and mental health support as needed, school counselors should be able to spend at least 80% of their work day in direct counseling with students. Although this is enshrined in the Virginia Code, a clear and protected system should be made accessible to staff to report violations of this policy without fear of retribution.
5. Implement a listening tour. The Superintendent, his designees, and School Board members should commit to visiting all locations, in which instruction takes place, by the end of September. At least one member of this cadre should visit each school building, providing the opportunity for teachers and staff to have a voice in presenting concerns; take notes, reserve the anonymity of those reporting concerns, and make the findings and next steps available to RPS leadership, the School Board, the REA, and the community for analysis.
6. Update grievance procedures. We need a robust and substantive overhaul of the Human Resources grievance process. This should include a school-by-school audit of the types of grievances filed, where they are filed, and who they are filed against. The findings of this audit should be used to evaluate policies and the performance of administrative and supervisory personnel.
7. End union-busting maneuvers. In conjunction with the REA, a list of union-busting behaviors should be made available to building level administrators;, and the School Board should adopt policy language against union-busting.
8. Fund every classroom. This includes raising the Amazon gift card program to a level inline with 21st-century teachers attempting to improve their classrooms during a time of record breaking inflation, and funding every Donors Choose project. We suggest leveraging the resources of the Richmond Education Foundation and inviting community partners to intentionally seek out Donors Choose projects and fund them.
9. Create a detailed accounting of the teacher recruitment bonuses. We need an explanation of what metrics will be used to gauge success and an explanation of what will happen to those funds when the program is over. What is the overall budget? What will be the length of the program? If and when the money is “clawed back”, we affirm that those funds should be redistributed to current RPS workers.
10. Complete an immediate audit with participant feedback of new and early career teacher supports. This includes the New Teacher Program, mentorship programs, as well as coaching support and training. Too many of our new, and career switch teachers report receiving either inadequate support or no support at all. Too many of our teachers quit within the first week or the first month of the school year. The school system must explicitly acknowledge this problem and create intentional interventions to support and welcome teachers new to the school system and new to the profession. This should include adequate training, evaluation, and compensation for participating teacher mentors and coaches.
We demand that the Mayor and City Council take action to address the growing housing crisis. They could start with any of the following:
1.Fund down payment assistance for RPS and City employees to ensure that those who work in the city can afford to buy a home in the city, thus, and to encourage these newly recruited teachers to stay.
2. Fund legal representation for tenants in eviction hearings.
3. Ensure one to one replacement of public housing.
4. Create a citywide registration system of all rental units that landlords are required to register their properties with.
5. Explore legislative pathways to create a system to control and discourage slumlords and make sure they are held accountable for maintenance requests, similar to the state level bill that Governor Youngkin vetoed last session.
6. Require all new economic development programs to intentionally include low-income and affordable housing that will adequately address the needs of our city.
7. Fully fund, build, staff, and include an itemized budget for a 24-hour permanent shelter for the unhoused.