Professional Development

Grow-your-own approaches are an increasingly popular teacher pipeline strategy as education leaders work to solve the puzzle of how to address teacher shortages.

These programs vary by district and state, but often provide high school juniors and seniors with dual enrollment opportunities to start gaining college credit toward a teaching degree. The programs then may further financially support those students when they enter colleges of education. 

In addition, grow-your-own programs can financially support community members or school paraprofessionals to advance to a teaching certification, particularly in high-need areas like special education and English language learning. 

Tennessee is becoming a model for grow-your-own, with its education department announcing in January it will be the first state to sponsor a teaching apprenticeship program approved by the U.S. Department of Labor. 

There are currently 65 grow-your-own programs among 14 colleges of education and 63 of Tennessee’s 147 school districts, according to the state education department. The programs offer no-cost pathways into the teaching profession through financial assistance for tuition, books and fees, along with establishing residencies for candidates to work alongside current teachers. 

U.S. Education Secretary Miguel Cardona visited Tennessee State University Feb. 22 to praise the historically Black institution’s grow-your-own teacher pipeline program, the Associated Press reported. TSU has created a pathway for high school seniors to earn a bachelor’s degree in teaching with initial licensure in biology, chemistry, special education or English as a second language. 

The state education department funded the TSU program through a grow-your-own competitive grant program. In October 2020, the department announced it would award $2 million to seven education prep programs to form or expand teacher pipeline partnerships with districts.

The federal Labor Department’s support for Tennessee teaching apprenticeships is significant, because “it opens up a pocket of money that wasn’t available to programs in the past,” said Jacqueline Rodriguez, vice president of research, policy and advocacy at the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education, which endorsed the state’s application to DOL. 

The West Virginia Department of Education is also planning to launch a grow-your-own teacher program this fall, WTRF reported. That state’s program aims to help high school students earn at least 22 college credit hours by completing four courses alongside K-12 classroom experience.

Diversifying the teacher workforce

While grow-your-own programs have existed in smaller communities, they have become more widespread in larger areas within the past five years, Rodriguez said. 

These programs can help create a more diverse workforce as they help teaching candidates afford their degree, Rodriguez said. Many grow-your-own programs make it a priority to recruit candidates of color, understanding that they can have a noticeable academic impact on all students — and particularly on students of color, she said. 

“It’s a beautiful way to allow candidates ample opportunity to not only grow in the profession but to grow within a community and to want to stay in that community,” Rodriguez said.

Grow-your-own programs can help develop a pipeline of teachers who look like their community and are eager to become educators, said Joshua Starr, chief executive officer of PDK International and a former school superintendent. PDK operates Educators Rising, a nationwide career and technical student organization that provides programming and curriculum for grow-your-own programs.

“Fortunately, more and more folks are starting to recognize, realize that we need to have teachers to reflect the demographics of their community,” Starr said. “We know from the research that when students of color have more educators that look like them, they tend to do better.”

In fact, matching students’ race with that of their teachers can decrease their likelihood of facing exclusionary discipline, particularly for Black and Latinx students in large, diverse and urban school districts, according to a study by the Annenberg Institute at Brown University analyzing a decade of New York City data from 2007 to 2017. 

National data isn’t yet available on the overall success of grow-your-own programs since the trend is still fairly new, according to Starr. Another reason tangible data is lacking is because it can be difficult to track students once they graduate high school, he said.

Are students interested in teaching?

Introducing students at a young age to the idea of a teaching career through programs like grow-your-own will hopefully encourage them to in fact become educators, Starr said. 

But there’s a concerning shift in public sentiment toward educators caused by COVID-19 disruptions, just as ed prep programs have seen a decline in enrollment, Rodriguez said. An October Ipsos survey found American public trust in teachers declined by 6 percentage points between 2019 and 2021. 

Rodriguez said she’s heard from students who don’t want to enter the profession because of growing censorship laws targeting educators. At least nine states have passed laws prohibiting teachers from discussing divisive concepts that some parents and legislators fear are present in the classroom, though educators contend are not.

Teacher candidates “these days are watching the media, and they’re watching the public sentiment, and they’re noting the devaluation of the profession,” Rodriguez said. “They’re taking note of the censorship teachers are facing across the country with legislation that bans them from actually teaching the historic truth about either American history or current events.”

For instance, newly inaugurated Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin Jan. 15 signed an executive order to end critical race theory discussions in K-12 schools.

“Inherently divisive concepts, like Critical Race Theory and its progeny, instruct students to only view life through the lens of race and presumes that some students are consciously or unconsciously racist, sexist, or oppressive, and that other students are victims,” Youngkin’s executive order said. 

But according to a recent University of California, Los Angeles study tracking anti-CRT campaigns' impact on K-12, CRT is a university-level theory stemming from legal studies and used in education research, and is not taught in K-12 classrooms.

If ed prep programs want to create a workforce of teachers that mirrors the diversity of their communities, Rodriguez asked, “How do we encourage future candidates of color to walk into a school system where they already feel silenced?”

Financial barriers from college tuition and low teacher pay are also preventing teacher candidates of color from entering the field, Rodriguez said. 

While national conversations surrounding the teacher shortage typically cite a lack of interest among young people for becoming teachers, Starr said there are still students out there who might go into teaching if an adult they respect asked them to consider it.

In general, many students want to serve their communities — they just need to be asked, he said.

“Kids want to serve. They want to help. They want to be a part of something. They’re mission-driven,” Starr said. “What we find is that when you just kind of ask them, they’ll oftentimes come to the table.”

Have a grow-your-own champion

For districts looking to start a grow-your-own program, it’s important to partner with a local college of education to establish a model that speaks to the community's needs, Rodriguez said. 

Getting state agencies involved with a local district and higher education partnership through funding and policy supports will also help the grow-your-own model to address student needs.

“That relationship and that level of communication, and the level of true relationship building cannot be understated,” Rodriguez said.  

If state leaders are deliberate about involving community stakeholders like higher education leaders, union leaders, district leaders and nonprofits when developing grow-your-own programs, “you can get a lot of stuff done,” Starr said. 

Overall, good leaders work with their local colleges, they create career pathway programs, and they talk with their state departments about breaking down barriers and creating incentives for training teachers, Starr said.

But it can be hard to launch a grow-your-own program initially, so it’s important to have a champion, he said.

“You need someone who is focused on this full time, who has some authority, who can bring people around the table,” Starr said. “Sometimes, states and districts don’t dedicate the resources to that. It just becomes one more thing that someone else has to do.”

Education leaders convened in Nashville, Tennessee, to discuss the impact assistant principals can have on building and diversifying education leadership pipelines during a session at the National Conference on Education, held by AASA, the School Superintendents Association.

According to a “2022 Voice of the Superintendent Survey” from education company EAB, nearly half of district leaders say they are considering or planning to leave their job in the next two to three years. 

Likewise, a National Association of Secondary School Principals survey released in December found 38% of principals expect to leave the profession in the next three years.

“We know, today, the issues superintendents are facing with staffing and the concern we have with what is, in essence, a diminishing pipeline,” AASA Executive Director Dan Domenech told attendees. “A very important part of that pipeline process, obviously, are assistant principals.”

“This has a particularly negative impact on schools that serve the poor, the vulnerable and students of color,” said Sharon Contreras, superintendent of Guilford County Schools in Greensboro, North Carolina. “We have a fractured principal pipeline right now.”

But capitalizing on the potential of assistant principals and building pipelines to top roles requires clearly defining what that role can be and focusing resources on building intentional pathways.

The state of the assistant principalship

According to “The Role of Assistant Principals: Evidence and Insights for Advancing School Leadership,” a report commissioned by the Wallace Foundation, the number of assistant principals jumped 83%, from around 44,000 to about 81,000, in the 25 years between the 1990-91 and 2015-16 school years. 

More research is needed to understand exactly why that boom occurred, said Ellen Goldring, professor of educational policy and leadership at Vanderbilt University’s Peabody College and a co-author of the report.

Additionally, the number of principals who have assistant principal experience has also increased, from about half to more than three quarters of current principals.

Assistant principals are more common in city and suburban schools, and schools that have higher percentages of assistant principals also tend to have higher percentages of students of color. Nearly 70% of secondary schools have assistant principals, compared to about half of elementary schools.

For instance, the average percentage of Latinx students and Black students in schools with assistant principals was 25% and 19%, respectively, compared to 19% and 11% in schools without assistant principals. Conversely, the average percentage of White students in schools with assistant principals was 47%, versus 61% in schools without the role.

The Wallace Foundation report also cites studies of administrative data across six states — Florida, Illinois, Iowa, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Tennessee — showing assistant principals are more likely to be people of color than are principals or teachers. 

This, Goldring said, raises the question of whether educators of color have to take an extra step on the way to a principalship not required of their White peers.

It additionally highlights other barriers educators of color face on leadership pathways. Along with lack of access to mentorship, especially for women of color, and discrimination in the schools they’re placed at, educators of color who take on assistant principal roles also tend to be assigned different leadership tasks.

Frequently, this takes the form of Black and brown educators being pulled into these positions to essentially serve as disciplinarians of students of color. 

“I implore us to stop doing this, to create these Black and brown men who are disciplinarians,” said Contreras. “All we’re really doing is asking them to come manage Black and brown bodies. It’s unfair. It’s unfair to the rest of the teachers in the building who should be honing their own skills in how to build relationships with all children so we don’t build these cultures of disciplinarians.” 

This is part of the reason for the increase in assistant principals, rather than a desire to boost instructional leadership, Contreras said, adding it’s a culture that must be broken because the current model continues to force assistant principals into roles as disciplinarians or building managers and not much more.

Women also remain underrepresented among both assistant principals and principals, accounting for 52% of both roles, relative to their proportion among teachers (77%). Women face barriers into leadership that include mentorship opportunities, assigned tasks, family responsibilities, differences in aspirations or confidence, and discrimination, according to the Wallace Foundation report.

How districts can improve pipelines

While research suggests more of assistant principals’ time is spent providing instructional leadership, not all are getting leadership roles and responsibilities that best prepare them for the principalship, and there’s no research on how tasks are assigned to these roles or why the role varies, Goldring said.

While there are no unique professional standards for assistant principals, there are specific tasks associated with the role that improve school climate and student outcomes, she said.

These include coaching teachers, being visible in the classroom, and attending to cultural inclusivity. There are still many knowledge gaps to fill to inform policy and practice, Goldring said, but there are steps districts can take to improve access and equity, remove barriers, and better prepare assistant principals with operational and instructional leadership skills they’ll need to be principals.

To identify and address barriers to advancement for educators of color and women, the Wallace Foundation report suggested districts can:

• Conduct equity audits to help identify and remove barriers to advancement.
• Examine who is receiving mentoring and professional development, and who is being tapped for advancement.
• Collect and analyze data by race and gender.

To ensure assistant principals are being prepared to lead schools:

• Adapt standards and leadership tasks consistent with the role’s function as a stepping stone to principalship.
• Create assistant principal evaluations appropriate to the role.
• Ensure principals have the skills to mentor assistant principals and equitably delegate tasks to develop their leadership skills.

What this looks like in practice

Guilford County has taken steps on this front by creating both an Assistant Principals Leadership Academy, in partnership with New Leaders, a nonprofit focused on helping to prepare education leaders, and a Guilford Aspiring Leaders Academy.

Guilford’s APLA is focused on ensuring assistant principals are equipped with the knowledge, skills and resources to build capacity and provide support to prepare them for the principalship, Contreras said. 

The goal is to create a collective culture of equity, efficacy and cultural competencies that drive student achievement, while building a sustainable talent pipeline to advance a culture of high performance and deeper learning, Contreras said. 

GALA, on the other hand, focuses on creating transformational leaders to address inequity and systemic racism, and on building a strong pipeline for leaders of color, she said. 

“We need to make sure we are placing Black and brown administrators across the board in schools across districts, irrespective of the demographics of that school, so they have these various experiences,” said Contreras. “And when they are struggling in low-performing schools that have, over time, not received the sort of support and funding they need, we stand by these administrators and provide them all the support they need.”

That includes making sure assistant principals are fully prepared to deal with the situations they’re going into, she said.

Greenville County Schools in Greenville, South Carolina, has developed similar pipeline initiatives, said Superintendent W. Burke Royster. 

These efforts include the district’s LEAD (Lead, Empower, Advocate, Develop) Institute, which aims to establish a student-centered culture, head effective professional learning communities, conduct coaching cycles with targeted feedback, and use data to support improved instruction and student achievement. 

The district has also partnered with nearby Clemson University to provide tuition assistance for an Education Leadership degree that leads to South Carolina certification as a building-level administrator.

Furthermore, Contreras advised there must be more leadership roles available in schools beyond just principal and assistant principal, such as master teachers. That model, for example, could help keep the best instructors in the classroom while still providing leadership opportunities.

“There’s a lot of work to be done in this area, but it is doable,” Contreras said.

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The decision to adopt a new program, technology, or methodology is exciting and at times terrifying. Many districts are exploring the benefits of technology by implementing a blended learning methodology in their classrooms. Blended learning offers a new way to not only reach students, but also prepare them for college and careers in the 21st century. While many school districts are exploring the possibilities of blended learning, they are also faced with challenges that must be acknowledged at the onset. Beginning a new initiative requires planning, preparing, and initiating the program effectively for a meaningful impact on not only the students but the teachers as well.

Blended learning isn’t putting a computer or another piece of technology into a student’s hands. It requires different pedagogical approaches to instruction. Even the most tech savvy teachers will need support. Planning is key to success. Ongoing professional development (PD) and a stakeholder buy-in are critical to rolling out blended learning.

Blended learning for professional development

Just as there is a push for students to have a personalized, blended learning approach to their education, teachers should also be immersed in personalized PD. Too often PD is disconnected from the expectations of the reimagined classroom. According to Heather Hill, Harvard University professor, “The professional development ‘system’ for teachers is, by all accounts, broken” and PD tends to be “short-term, episodic, and disconnected” from “teachers’ in-class practice.” (Hill, 2009) Teachers are charged with implementing blended learning in a learning management system (LMS), therefore, they should be using the LMS as part of their professional learning experience.

Training should reflect the method that teachers will be expected to implement. Modeling expectations and best practices encourages success. If teachers can navigate their own professional learning in the LMS, then higher adoption in the classroom should follow.

Teachers can practice what they teach

Real world scenarios of “how to ‘blend’” instruction in a pedagogically sound way empowers teachers and strengthens implementation. Professional development should involve creating choice in student learning, adopting the role of facilitator instead of the sage on the stage, and utilizing technology to support learning. Creating an environment that encourages teachers to take chances will instill confidence in the program as well.

Beyond the strategies and methodologies, teachers should have practice using the various tools of the LMS as part of their learning experience. Online discussions, blogs, journals, quizzing, etc. should be incorporated into the PD program. Teachers should have practice creating content and activities to build confidence in the platform and encourage use in the classroom. With all that technology has to offer, it will be useless if teachers don’t understand how to use it with their students.

Gaining buy-in begins with selection

Selecting the right LMS is an important decision as it will provide the platform for various forms of learning to take place. The selection process should allow for teacher participation, and encourage teachers to share their concerns and needs. Teachers will be charged with implementing the new technology, so having a voice in the process encourages buy-in later.

The LMS should meet the needs of both teachers and students and designed with the K12 environment in mind. This perception of the LMS can stand in the way of implementation as teachers might not embrace the technology and thus not adopt its use in the classroom.

When the LMS is designed with K12 in mind, implementing blended learning becomes more appealing. Gaining teacher buy-in to new initiatives and technology plays a big part in the success of any new program, so removing any barriers to implementation is vital. Choosing the right LMS can make the difference between the success and failure of blended learning. Thus, adopting a LMS with K12 in mind, might help school districts overcome barriers and encourage more immediate program success.

Want to learn more about how an LMS can help you get started with blended learning – Let’s Talk

As school communities continue to face challenges with divisive public arguments over curriculum and COVID-19 protocols, AASA, the School Superintendents Association, and the National School Public Relations Association are partnering to launch a Leadership in School Communication Program.

The program encourages superintendents and their communications staff to work in teams as they participate in one in-person and four virtual learning modules focused on critical areas of communication leadership. The program will run from March to July.

Moving forward, AASA Executive Director Daniel Domenech said he hopes the program will help develop clearer district communication that leads to a more civil and understanding environment in school communities. 

Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, many districts already viewed building communication skills, improving trust with parents and focusing on community engagement as areas for improvement, but the challenges of the past two years have further amplified that need. 

Misinformation in school communities has floated around since the pandemic’s onset and been exacerbated by debates over critical race theory, which makes now an important time to focus on district-level communication and developing dialogues between school leaders and parents, Domenech said. 

Ultimately, everything superintendents do in their work is to ensure the safety of students and staff, he said. 

But school board meetings have become violent and educators have been verbally abused and attacked, Domenech said.

For example, Domenech pointed to a recent incident at a Page County School Board meeting in Virginia where a parent said she “will bring every single gun loaded and ready” if her children had to wear masks in school. The local police department has since charged the woman with a Class 1 misdemeanor for making an oral threat while on school property, the Daily News-Record reported. 

“It’s a situation that we have never seen,” Domenech said. “It calls for the education establishment to be able to clearly and effectively communicate with the public, and particularly the parent community, what the issues are and explain why decisions are being made.”

The AASA-NSPRA program’s learning module topics include:

• Best practices in communication.
• Framing messages in a time of community divisiveness.
• Designing and delivering authentic community engagement.
• Telling districts’ stories through social and digital media.
• Taking control of media interviews.

Research around communications has found the more information parents receive from schools, the more they will be likely to actively support district efforts, said Barbara Hunter, executive director of NSPRA.

“Effective communication has never been more important and it’s been proven to be really successful in the past, and we need to dig in and continue our work and make sure that we don’t get sidetracked by the divisiveness,” Hunter said.

The program hopes to give education leaders the tools they need to be better communicators, Domenech said. 

“Yes, they know how to stand in front of a class and teach, but in terms of public relations and communications, per se, they don’t necessarily understand the process,” he said.

That’s also why superintendents need to work closely with communications leaders on their team, finding ways to translate academic and research terms used to promote district initiatives into a language that everyone can understand, Hunter said.

A nationally representative report on the experiences of Black educators released in February by the National Center for Education Statistics, the research arm of the U.S. Department of Education, shows a higher percentage of Black teachers had fewer years in the classroom than teachers overall. At the same time, Black teachers had a higher rate of attaining a post-master’s degree (13%) compared to all teachers (9%).

The report is based on data from the 2017-18 National Teacher and Principal Survey, which polled 60,000 part-time and full-time public school teachers among others. It shows 37% of Black teachers had been teaching for more than 15 years, compared to 43% of all teachers who had been teaching that long.

Additional findings from the NCES report reinforce previous research — that Black teachers are highly concentrated in the South, more likely to teach in cities, and much more likely to work in schools with higher rates of minority students.

The survey, conducted prior to the pandemic, comes amid recent evidence of higher teacher turnover triggered by the pandemic. A separate report released last week by MissionSquare Research Institute shows both K-12 teachers and Black people were more likely than other government employees to change jobs. 

Teacher burnout during the pandemic has been well-noted, as has the benefit of both long-time teachers and Black educators on student outcomes.

"Years of teaching experience, advanced training, and sharing a cultural identity with students have all been demonstrated to improve student learning outcomes,” said Jerry Rosiek, an education professor at the University of Oregon, in an email. “We should not have to choose between them."

But burnout could have a disproportionate impact on Black and veteran teachers, experts said. 

“Veteran teachers experience greater burnout and express health concerns, therefore many of our more veteran educators are resigning or retiring,” said Dana Williams, Georgia state director at the Association of American Educators. 

Rosiek added a similar story could be unfolding for teachers of color. 

“As is often the case, any added stressors in working conditions often impact non-White professionals harder — because working against the grain of systemic racism in schools is already difficult,” Rosiek said. “So, we may end up losing more teachers of color as a result, which just exacerbates already existing equity challenges." 

And as both novice and veteran teachers are now leaving the profession, some places have loosened the qualifications to land a teaching job or enter the profession. 

“Unfortunately for our Black students, the new Black teachers lack classroom management, learned teaching strategies, teacher experience, and have little or no on-the-job training,” Williams said. “Because of the pandemic and teacher shortage, many schools are making rash decisions by lowering hiring standards and unfortunately are operating as essentially day care centers.” 

These changes to the workforce are unfolding as more students — especially Hispanic and Black students — fall behind, and as the achievement gap widens. 

“We need to have a reset on education and figure out how to hire and retain high-performing Black educators so that we are ultimately benefiting all students, but our Black students especially suffer from their absence,” Williams said.

Schools in Indiana will no longer be able to hire special education teachers on emergency licensure status after this school year and will instead only be able to hire fully-licensed special education teachers or educators actively working on alternative pathways to full licensure, according to an Indiana Department of Education memo and FAQs issued recently.

The emergency permit process was used to temporarily fill special education teaching vacancies, but the state is making the change in order to comply with federal and state policy. The change only applies to special education teachers.

Indiana’s policy change demonstrates the challenge of hiring fully-prepared and qualified special educators during ongoing teacher shortages and during a critical moment for pandemic-related learning recovery for students with disabilities.

Nationwide, about 90% of students with and without disabilities were taught by educators with permanent teaching certificates in 2013 and 2015, according to a report from the National Center for Education Statistics. 

The report, however, said schools with higher proportions of students from low-income households and higher proportions of students of color tend to have teachers with temporary certifications, fewer years of teaching experience, and teaching in fields in which they are not necessarily certified.

The National Council on Teacher Quality recommends states cease providing emergency or provisional teaching permits to teachers who have not met their state’s license requirements. Each state sets its own standards for emergency teaching licenses, but for special educators, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act says teachers of students with disabilities may not have their license waived on an emergency, temporary or provisional basis. Special educators also must have a bachelor’s degree.

“You can't expect positive student outcomes or student achievement or implementation of initiatives like [multi-tiered systems of support] if you don't have the right people with the right skills delivering the instruction,” said Laurie VanderPloeg, associate executive director for professional affairs at the Council for Exceptional Children and a former director of the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Special Education Programs.

VanderPloeg said hardships created by the pandemic have added to significant challenges filling special education teacher shortages, in part because some people who were in teacher preparation programs had to pause that commitment. 

She added, however, that states and school districts are implementing alternative teaching pathways to support prospective teachers as they actively work toward obtaining full-licensure status. 

These alternative pathways to full licensure for people who already have a bachelor’s degree but don’t have education or school-based backgrounds are acceptable under the Indiana policy. High-quality, rigorous alternative teaching pathways are also endorsed by the federal education department and recognized by IDEA. Most states have policies, practices and dedicated funding for alternative preparation routes, according to an OSEP document. 

For example, Minnesota’s Grow Your Own program has made strides in expanding education preparation programs for paraprofessionals of color. Indiana has a Transition to Teaching program that provides candidates with pedagogical preparation needed for the grade span in which they are seeking licensure. The Georgia Teacher Academy for Preparation and Pedagogy gives career changers and college graduates without a teaching license support as they earn a full teaching certificate. 

CEC’s JumpStart program also offers online mentoring and coursework for new and early career special educators.

Alternative teacher preparation programs should include comprehensive coursework, mentoring and a strong induction program, said VanderPloeg. Ideally, these alternative routes should produce educators of the same quality as those from traditional teacher preparation programs, she said.

“We want states to be able to consider alternate approaches to certification, but in the same breath, we want to make sure that the programs are comprehensive and they have additional supports in place to ensure success,” she said.

As educators return to classrooms amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, they too will need social-emotional support, and a "descriptive inquiry" approach can allow administrators to give them a platform for reaching out and gathering support from school communities to find solutions, Cara Furman, an assistant professor of literacy education at the University of Maine at Farmington and former urban public elementary school teacher, and Cecelia Traugh, dean of the Graduate School of Education at Bank Street College, write for Edutopia.

Descriptive inquiry uses precise language that avoids judgment while focusing on a specific challenge or purpose, the Furman and Traugh write. The first step can involve a teacher reaching out to their department head to formulate an open-ended question to share with peers, focused around a specific central idea or concern that best represents the issue.

The strategy also includes a recollection phase where peer teachers share their own experiences, as well as a descriptive review phase where the teacher describes specifics about the issue to give others a better understanding of the situation.

In the return to full-time, in-person learning, a lot of emphasis has been placed on the need to provide students additional social-emotional support, but many educators will also need that support.

A March survey of California educators by the Inverness Institute showed teachers felt distance learning created more work. The survey also indicated 59% of teachers felt the public misunderstood their workload requirements, and 20% said they spent additional time figuring out how to use new online learning platforms.

There is also evidence the daily pressures educators face are contributing to a dwindling teacher workforce. A report from the Colorado Department of Education and Colorado Education Initiative shows 6% of teachers were planning to leave the profession, and 2% are taking a leave of absence.

Educators’ feelings of burnout can negatively affect student achievement. To ease the pressure, school administrators can build time into the day to allow teachers to reconnect and collaborate with their coworkers. In addition, the Second Step SEL for Adults program, written specifically for K-12 teachers, gives guidance on how best to support educators.

Traditional professional development options for educators often fail to meet their diverse needs: Nonprofit TNTP estimates districts spend $18,000 per teacher per year on PD, yet only 29% of teachers are happy with their options, Kareem Farrah and Robert Barnett, a pair of educators who co-founded the nonprofit Modern Classroom Project to offer training and support to educators redesigning their classrooms, write for Edutopia.

To make the most of teachers’ time, educators should be allowed to choose what they consider to be the most relevant options to them and given time to implement their new skills into lessons. That means weighing cuts to the amount of time they spend doing other tasks, such as meetings.

In exchange for more PD choices and additional time to implement new skills, administrators can expect teachers to come back with something that demonstrates their new knowledge, such as a presentation, which also gives educators the opportunity to share what they’ve learned with their peers.

The highest-quality professional development programs focus on four common features — content, support for collaboration, time for feedback and reflection and personalized coaching and support — according to a Council of the Great City Schools report. On the other hand, educator focus groups say PD programs miss the mark when they lack differentiation, deep content focus, effective coaching support and course offering alignments.

Virtual PD options offer flexibility, but designers of these programs shouldn’t attempt to make them the same as in-person versions. When designing virtual options, experts suggest focusing on the desired outcome and what the educators hope to get out of the sessions, as well as clearly defining the role of both the facilitator and the participants.

It's also recommended that breakout rooms be optional for virtual sessions, as they can create awkward situations for some participants. Attendees should be encouraged to communicate via chat functions. They also need several five-minute breaks throughout the day. Personal touches, such as hearing songs they selected play during the transition periods, are also often appreciated by attendees. 

In Maine Township High School District 207, Superintendent Ken Wallace prioritized coaching in PD. That approach, he told K-12 Dive earlier this year, increases PD implementation rates to as much as 80% to 90%. Previously, implementation rates were around just 10% to 20%. Prior to implementing coaching, the district delivered PD through the traditional means of holding a workshop, discussing the topic and spending a little time practicing it.

AASA, The School Superintendents Association, and Advancement Via Individual Determination on Aug. 5 announced the launch of the National Instructional Leader Academy, focused on building a thought leadership community for district leaders in charge of instruction, assessment or technology.

The National Instructional Leader Academy aims to connect these leaders so they can share best practices and enhance one another's professional development. In a press release, AVID Chief Executive Officer Sandy Husk said, “As we strengthen quality and equity in our current programs, we are certain this new initiative will provide pathways for district leaders to collaborate collegially and allow innovation to thrive.”

Instructional leadership approaches place greater emphasis on curriculum and instruction, creating a culture of learning and providing feedback to teachers. Their adoption has trended most notably in recent years at the principal level, where research published by New America in 2017 found 26 states explicitly identified "instructional leadership" as a standard for principals, and the other half expressed it via a term like "teaching and learning."

The approach has been a central component of the changing role of the principalship, going beyond management and compliance duties to require more hands-on support of teachers, while also requiring a shift in principal professional development and building management at the district level, where roles have been created in some cases to alleviate some of the burdens of non-instructional duties.

But the push for more innovative learning models and transformational schools has also necessitated the growth of instructional leadership in district administration. This can be seen most notably in the breaking down of silos between central office departments in recent years.

A district's IT chief, for example, is now more likely to have to consider the implications their decisions have for classrooms and pedagogy as the leaders in charge of a school system's curriculum and instruction or assessment offices.

Along these lines, the announcement for the National Instructional Leader Academy laid out several objectives for administrators involved in district-level instructional leadership:

• Establish professional learning communities focused on district instructional leadership's role in supporting equitable opportunities for all students.
• Consult with leaders in an examination of current district goals, practices and instructional systems from a perspective of leadership, culture, instruction and systems.
• Introduce processes to support district-level culture, provide leadership, guide instruction, and align and integrate systems that ensure college-and career-readiness for all students.
• Empower leaders to address change, troubleshoot challenges, and identify what's needed to plan and create a foundation that supports equitable opportunities for all students.