The Model

valued and find success. Approximately eight percent of teachers choose to leave teaching every year (Carver-Thomas & Darling-Hammond, 2017). Beginning teachers leave at an even more rampant pace, with up to 30 percent of teachers leaving the profession within the first five years (Sutcher, Darling-Hammond, & Carver-Thomas, 2016). This is a problem for national teacher shortages considering attrition rates make up almost 90 percent of annual teacher demand (Carver-Thomas & DarlingHammond, 2017). However, attrition rates alone do not reveal the magnitude of problems left behind from teachers leaving their positions.

Annually, 16 percent of all teachers either quit the profession or leave their school in search of another school to work (Carver-Thomas & Darling-Hammond, 2017). The Alliance for Excellent Education suggests the cost of teacher attrition in the United States can be as high as $2.2 billion per year (Haynes, 2014). For you, a school leader, that means when people leave your building, you then need to spend additional time and money on recruiting, hiring, orienting, and training new staff. Your professional development offerings need to increase so new staff can get up to speed. Your student achievement, staff morale, collegiality, and collaboration decrease as it takes time for new teachers to settle into the demands and responsibilities of their new jobs. The list of roadblocks goes on and on and on.

There is no denying the teaching profession can be difficult on the mental health and well-being of teachers. Research suggests that teachers are feeling more overworked, stressed, and dissatisfied with their jobs than ever before (Shernoff, Mehta, Atkins, Torf, & Spencer, 2011). Several studies highlight the severity of the problems facing the teaching profession. The Learning Policy Institute reports 55 percent of teachers cited job dissatisfaction as a reason they chose to quit teaching (Sutcher et al., 2016). The report goes on to explain the impact dissatisfaction has on staff turnover by stating, “Most teachers who voluntarily leave the classroom list some area of job dissatisfaction as very important or extremely important in their decision to leave the profession” (Sutcher et al., 2016). When compared to other professions, teachers often have higher stress and more difficulty finding a balance between their personal lives and professional lives (Worth & Van den Brande, 2019). Another study found teachers consider their jobs stressful during almost two-thirds of the time they work, which is almost twice as high as those working outside of education (American Federation of Teachers, 2017). It’s no wonder two-thirds of teachers that leave the profession do so before retirement (Carver-Thomas & Darling-Hammond, 2017). Figure I.1 (page 4) reflects additional research findings on common turnover factors.

There is little doubt the demands of the teaching profession have been dramatically elevated through high-stakes accountability systems and an increasing number of students coming to school with social-emotional needs from adverse childhood experiences. Such experiences include “various forms of physical and emotional abuse,