Dive Brief:

• Duke University has launched a new teacher professional development program called TeachHouse.
• The program partners two veteran teachers and four new teachers in one house for two years of professional development and cohabitation.
• The goal is to improve retention by providing teachers with an environment of support and understanding from other stressed-out educators.

Dive Insight:

Turnover among early and mid-career teachers has become a mounting concern for school districts facing potential hiring shortfalls and scrambling to find high-quality candidates. Research has found that a sense of support and belonging, as well as career-long mentoring, can help prevent turnover and burnout. Duke’s TeachHouse takes on those challenges in a manner that could recreate the tight bonds formed in college dorms — or, perhaps, even the conflict.

But the program is also intended to address a second teaching challenge: affordable housing. In many urban communities, teachers have struggled to pay for decent homes, a detail that also helps fuel turnover and increase costs for districts in salary increases. The TeachHouse offers a short term solution, and the university is also seeking out low-interest loans that could help teachers buy homes in the area.