The purpose of this work-in-progress report is to generate discussion and feedback with the focus on developing systems to support beginning teachers, ensuring greater retention. In our state of Arizona, as of September 2017, there are over 1,300 vacancies and less that 50% of those teacher vacancies going into this school year were filled by those with a standard teacher certificate (by graduating from the College of Education) [1]. Astonishingly, over 500 teachers have abandoned or resigned their teaching positions between July and September 2017, leaving unfilled classrooms of students with no certified teacher [1]. Teachers have been leaving at alarming rates or as Kain [15] puts it “…America’s teacher dropout problem is spiraling out of control”. Improving retention is important because evidence suggests that the number of years of teaching experience may be positively related to student achievement [22].

Published in: World Congress on Education (WCE-2018)

• Date of Conference: 15-18 July 2018
• DOI: 10.2053/WCE.2018.0083
• ISBN: 978-1-908320-91-9
• Conference Location: Dublin, Ireland