Leading the Way: Building Schools Where Teachers Thrive

July 14, 2025

Education leaders recognize that effectively recruiting and retaining teachers is complex. It necessitates comprehensive reform of not only existing systems but also existing ideas about the importance and value of teachers as the nucleus of each and every classroom.

This Spotlight highlights resources that school and district leaders can use to inform their plans to support, sustain, and retain teachers.

Leading With Inquiry

It is critical that leaders understand teachers’ experiences before they begin any initiative. Through a process of assessment, leaders must ask questions that illuminate and provide a clear window into the day-to-day challenges that teachers face.

The infographic How to Grow Teacher Wellbeing in Your Schools notes three ways to get feedback from teachers:

• scale-based surveys 
• one-on-one interviews  
• focus groups

The infographic also contains tips for choosing measurement tools. The evidence generated by these tools helps guide decision-making and inform improvements in policy and practice.

For example, the Utah State Board of Education engaged their early-career teachers in “stay interviews,” which are proactive, intentional conversations with employees they want to retain to determine what it will take to keep them from leaving. The conversations administrators had with their teachers were used to build a theory of practice designed to support program improvement activities.

What the Research Shows

Researchers at REL Northwest compiled existing research examining the link between teacher working conditions and teacher retention. They identified eight categories of working conditions that could influence a teacher’s decision to stay or leave. 

The research suggests teachers are more likely to stay in the profession if they

• experience positive family and community engagement, 
• are supported by school leadership, 
• encounter consistent and fair management of student conduct, 
• engage actively in leadership opportunities,  
• have school facilities and resources that are conducive to supporting teaching and learning, 
• are collectively supported in implementing instructional practices, 
• have time for teaching and planning, and  
• are provided with relevant professional learning opportunities.

Insights for Supporting, Sustaining, and Retaining Teachers

While school and district leaders may not be able to implement a complete plan for supporting teachers right away, here are some insights from WestEd experts and our partners on how to enhance teacher well-being and satisfaction.

Boost morale and motivation. This blog post, written by Kevin Perks of Quality Schools and Districts at WestEd, offers ideas that can help school and district leaders boost motivation and morale among teachers and other personnel. It explores what is known about motivation and then describes the following five practices that education leaders can use to leverage the motivation that already exists among their staff:

• Promote teacher voice and decision-making. 
• Make tasks meaningful by connecting them to teaching and learning. 
• Support success on challenging tasks. 
• Provide opportunities for meaningful collaboration.

Ensure manageable workloads. In The Case for Differentiated Staffing in the Classroom, WestEd experts Kate Wright and Gretchen Weber describe an outdated model of the teacher workforce that requires teachers to “be all things to all people all the time.” A differentiated staffing model may offer a solution for excessive workloads:

A differentiated or distributed leadership model allows for multiple entry points into the classroom. There is a Lead Teacher, an experienced instructional expert, who supports the academic content and pedagogical decisions for the team. There are also novice or apprentice educators who may be completing their student teaching experience or in their first year as a classroom teacher.

In addition, reducing unnecessary job demands and ensuring teachers have the time and resources to do their jobs well is strongly tied to lower stress and higher satisfaction. In practice, education leaders can take concrete steps, such as providing more time for planning and breaks or limiting the time spent on administrative or noninstructional tasks. By proactively managing workloads and stressors, schools can make teachers’ day-to-day lives more tenable and set teachers up for success.

New Heights Charter School developed a teaming strategy that led not only to a high sense of belonging, connection, and agency for both teachers and students but also to a more manageable workload:

New Heights … provides teachers with training on working as a team so they can learn from and rely upon each other. Each grade-level team consists of two teachers, a paraprofessional, a counselor or social worker, and a resource team staff member. The team works collaboratively to problem-solve student or family challenges, with the expectation that team members will learn from one another and that they will pull in other staff as needed to resolve any issue, including those who have more experience with a student or expertise on a certain subject. (Team-Based Approaches to Serving Students)

Hear New Heights Charter School’s story.

Foster a culture of teacher and staff well-being. With a growing evidence base attesting to increased stress and burnout among school-based staff, many schools are launching efforts to support educator well-being. Castle Park Middle School enlisted the support of the National Conflict Resolution Center to facilitate confidential listening circles for educators, helping staff gain a shared sense of understanding, connection, and collaboration. The listening circles created a structured space where teachers were able to voice their emotions, struggles, and hopes. As one of the school’s science teachers, Melissa Rains, said,

I think one of the biggest indicators is our teachers are staying. They’re not leaving, they’re not taking jobs elsewhere. Even though it’s incredibly difficult to be a teacher here right now, people are staying and they’re showing up every day ready to do their jobs. And I think that’s the biggest testament to the work that we’re doing.

Listen to the audiocast about Castle Park’s educator listening circles.

Collaborate across teams to increase teacher compensation. Teachers are on the front lines with students every day. A teacher’s compensation should be life-sustaining and represent the weight and responsibility of the role. This recent webinar features a panel of state and district leaders from across the country who have been tackling this issue on the ground. They share how they have engaged the public, explored approaches to redesigning salary structures, and considered approaches to raising revenue or expense trade-offs to cover the cost.

View the webinar.

How We Can Help

WestEd supports state and local education leaders to attract, prepare, retain, and sustain highly effective educators for every classroom. We convene and collaborate with multidisciplinary teams of researchers, evaluators, and policy experts to solve critical teacher workforce challenges at every level of the education system.

Discover more about our services.