The Great Resignation: Teacher Edition

Welcome to the Learning Can't Wait podcast an iTutor production at iTutor. Our vision is to ensure every child has access to education regardless of circumstance. Each episode, we will be joined by Pathfinders within and around the education space. Who are bringing about transformational change? On behalf of deserving students, I am your host, Hayley Spear Ofour.

Welcome back everybody to today's podcast entitled The Great Resignation Teacher Edition With us today, our three incredible professionals in and around the education space. We have Dr. Mia Mulrennan, Leigh, and Henry Wellington. Welcome every. Thank you. Thank you. I know that as former educators, each of you has probably a lot of feelings and opinions about what we're seeing today in education.

But before we jump into our topic at hand, I'd love if you could tell all of our guests a little bit about yourself. Starting off, we'll go alphabetically by first name. Henry, will you kick us off? Yes, thanks Hayley. So, my name's Henry Wellington. I'm the founder and CEO of Upbeat Education. I'm a former special education teacher.

I taught in New York City and I taught at two schools that had a lot of teacher turnover. And I'd been a teacher recruiter before I became a teacher. So I'd been part of creating a really thorough process to bring teachers. But I just didn't see the same thorough process around trying to keep teachers and, and keep morale high.

And so that influenced me to build a company, to support school districts with teacher retention, and to partner with researchers, develop a survey or every question and item is research based in terms of what impacts teachers staying and leaving. And then we provide support to principals and district leaders to take next steps.

So I'm really excited to have this conversation with you all and share some of what we're seeing around teacher retention. Something I think you and your team think about every single day, given that you've crafted an entire organization to support keeping teachers in their schools. So thank you so much for being here, Henry.

Yep, absolutely. Thanks for having me, Hayley. I, am Leigh. I lead the recruitment team for the professional market. I Teach For America, so we recruit recent college graduates to become corps member and teachers who Teach For America. I've been at Teach For America for 13 years and prior to that I was a New York City teacher for America Corps member.

And I taught middle school math and science in the South Bronx and Harlem at Teach For America. I have spent, about three years on the recruitment team and then nine years on the corps member selection team leading our process to hire our corps member. Thanks for having me, Hayley. Of course, and I myself also am a Teach For America alum.

And so, you know, just wanna be self disclosing on that front that I'm excited to hear how Teach For America is approaching some of the problems our teacher labor market is facing today. So thanks for being here, Leigh. And last but certainly not least, Dr. Mia Mulrennan, thank you so much for being here today.

Oh, thanks for having me, Hayley. My connection to education is on a few different levels. I have been an educator. I was a school psychologist in the Minneapolis public schools. I also taught at the graduate level, at Georgetown University. I taught leadership and ethics at the master's level. The end of my teaching career was having received the huge honor.

Georgetown's Teaching Excellence Award, and then I became an executive in the EdTech space. I was, chief HR Officer, for a company called Edmentum. And then, Mostly as far as connection to teachers and retainment of teachers and their experiences. My doctorate is an applied business psychology, so I have a lot of mission and values based drive for the wellbeing of teachers and how teachers can do their very best for themselves, not only their students.

So that's, that's my back. My guess is that a lot of people tuning in today are listening because they want solutions. And Dr. Mulrennan, as you think about the psychology of our teachers and the trauma they've faced over the past two years, I imagine, and we won't give it all away right now, but I imagine you'll have a lot to share about how you think we can create psychologically safe environments for teachers to ensure that they remain in the classroom to serve.

Absolutely. Is that a fair assumption? Yes, absolutely. I'll be able to provide a lot of context around that that I hope will be comforting for teachers. Great, so happy to have all three of you here. I have been looking forward to this podcast for a few weeks now. We, we began talking each separately, and I, after talking to each and every one of you, thought to myself, this is a very relevant thing that we need to talk about.

Resignation rates are the highest they've been in decades, particularly among mid-career employees as well as in the technology. Sector. However, I would say that education is not very far behind that. I don't wanna just make broad generalizations and statements without backing it up with numbers. So, Henry, can you tell us maybe from some of your specific purview, what are we seeing in terms of teacher retention this year and last year?

mid, mid pandemic. I don't, I don't know if we're mid, I don't know if we're ends, but throughout this pandemic where we are today, what, what would you, what has Upbeat seen and what trends are you. Yeah, so we've been looking at our fall 2021 survey results that teachers have taken, and we had about 16,000 survey completions with a sample that it's not technically nationally representative, but it, it's very, very close.

And what we've seen in looking at that data, but also looking at the spring data are a few different trends. So one, looking at spring 2021 and why teachers left, we saw some of the biggest differences for the people that did leave around the feeling of belonging. So do they belong at their school? Do teachers play an active role in shaping school policies?

So that goes into influence in leadership decision making, which we know is really important around retention. And thenmy school is a place that supports teachers mental wellbeing.There's another, big difference between people that left versus people that stayed. And then the last is trust for a principal.

And that's something we know is really important in terms of impacting teacher retention. It's also just something that's really important in terms of general employee engagement, is that trust that an employee has with their boss or supervisor. In terms of current fall data, some of the biggest drops from last year to this year are in our categories on work-life balance, overall satisfaction, and then belonging, wellbeing.

So we're not seeing as big drops in terms of teachers collaborating with each other and the evaluation practices or, you know, hiring and onboarding practices, but more in. Areas of work-life balance and and wellbeing. And then the last thing in our sample of about 15,000 teachers who took the survey in fall 2020 and fall 2021.

27% were in person in fall 2020, and 89% are in person this fall. So that data just helps tell a story about what teachers are dealing with right now, because you know, that's about 60% of them that have gone from one situation a year ago to a new situation this year. And there's a huge amount of adjustment that we're hearing about from our partner districts around.

The students coming in academically behind students coming in, you know, not necessarily used to the behavior management system that's being incorporated in school. And then the last piece around there being a shortage also of non-instructional employees and that putting more of a strain on teachers too and, and kind of increasing their workload.

That is a lot to unpack, but I think there are some real nuggets in there that are identifiable for both people in the education space and beyond. But today we're talking about the teacher edition of the Great Resignation, so let's focus on that. Leigh, I'm curious for you, you know, in your role and in teacher America's role in bringing young talent, or not even young, but talent earlier in their careers to the teaching profession, which of these are topics that, that Henry has named, which tend to be important as you look for support for your teachers?

I'm imagining that these are resonant tenants of the, the work you're doing with Teach For America as. Our recruits and our, our top corps member, they have a deep desire to have an impact. Like they want to be making a difference. They want to be in front of kids and they wanna be doing that as quickly as possible.

And so that's part of the appeal I Teach For America to them, is that you can apply to Teach For America and be a classroom teacher the next school year. And so what we really see is like, there is such a passion when they first joined teaching, right? And like this real desire to be with kids, be in the classroom and, and make the world a better.

Andwhat we see is slowly the systemic barriers start to chip away at them.Right. And the challenges like, like what, what Henry was saying around non-teaching personnel in the school, right? So when you're thinking about lack of bus drivers, cafeteria staff, school nurses, teaching assistants, all of these things, lack of supplies, lack of hand soap, all of this stuff starts to wear on a person who really has come in with this passion and fire for having great impact on kids.

And they start to realize, Okay. There are a lot of challenges in front of me and I have to. Really extremely hard to have the impact that I wanna have, that I thought I was gonna have. And so I think that's really the important piece around like having a network, having friends, having a peer group, that sense of belonging that Henry was talking about.

It's just really important that our teachers are in a, in community, nurtured, supported, have wellbeing and can face the challenges they're gonna face, like as part of a, a group and a network. And so we see. That our corps member have to rely on each other and rely on the network, rely on the other teachers in the school to sustain in a really challenging environ.

How does that fit with your general understanding, Dr. Mulrennan of what drives humans forward? Right. Because you know, business psychology in and of itself I think would probably have quite a large focus on employee wellbeing and the impact of resignations and preventing it. So I'd love to hear your kind of take on the information Henry shared and his his organization's takeaways from this fall and last.

Absolutely. So in industrial organizational psychology as a field, we really look at the big context around working and making sure that. Working is good for both the person who's performing the work and the entity that they are performing for. So pulling things all the way back. We have done a lot of research on which workers share commonalities.

And the good, the bad, and the ugly to be quite frank with each other. Interestingly enough, from a psychological perspective, teachers in the classroom share a lot of the same components as airline pilots. Shocking, right? Not more. Yeah, I've never heard that. Not when you . Not when you look at the, think of the context.

So an airline pilot is responsible for all souls on board. And the wellbeing and safety and guidance of those souls in each seat. The same applies to teachers in the classroom who are mostly in, let's think of a traditional classroom setting, understanding that they are going to have these souls on board.

Kids in their classroom, and you could even make the argument that for teachers it's even just as stressful. Granted, they're not flying in the sky, but being responsible for other people's kids, gives a whole other meaning to all souls on board. Here's what's very interesting. In I/O psychology, we look at the traditional Maslow hierarchy, the sense of belonging, which is a piece of that has been mentioned already.

Teachers are pretty good at providing their own personal safety and wellbeing. They hydrate better than airline pilots do. They tend to overall have access to healthier food, things like that. It tend to go a little bit. Sense of belonging is very mixed. However, because pilots and I, I know I'm speaking about this specific population, but they have constant communication with other people who are their peers and who are there to support them.

think of, you know, air traffic controllers, flight attendants, et cetera. Teachers and sometimes it, it is of their own doing. So teachers, take note, tend to not only be more isolated, but isolate themselves to some degree. And so that sense of belonging is not only something that comes to you but should also be coming from the teacher as well.

The days of teachers having a long lunch together in the teacher's lounge are kind. Over in the past, so think of that context. Next, if you're jumping up the hierarchy, I'm gonna move all the way to self-actualization so I'm not talking too much, which is what Lee talked about. Teachers undergo a huge amount of dis disillusionment at the beginning of their career.

They usually go into it because, teaching is a extremely noble profession. They know they can have a direct. They have a sense of altruism that other professionals don't have. But then when they start to do the actual job, they begin to realize that they're paying a lot of money out of pocket to get their needs met because the resources aren't there that they thought would be that.

there's bureaucracy that there's red tape, that parents themselves are sometimes. Major part of the bureaucracy and they first suffer this grand sense of disillusionment. That's part of the state of being a teacher. But the news is good in that those who stick with the teaching profession end up investing a lot in what is called individual and personal legacy, and they don't even have to intentionally.

Simply having the fortitude to stick with teaching. Has you accumulate over years, the things that brought you to the profession to begin with. Students that you have indeed impacted having an impact on the greater community, having a positive impact on parents. But a lot of it does entail that fortitude, that grit, if you will, and, and that's really some of the main components that we find when we look at teaching as an industry and a profession compared with other profess.

Wow. So if I, if I was going to synthesize some of what you're sharing, Dr. Mulrennan, and I'm hearing first of all that we are essentially the Captain Sully of the sky in the classrooms. Y'all remember when the pilot saved the entire aircraft, but today, more than ever, there is a real, not just like metaphorical holding of the children's lives in our hands, but with, and I don't, I don't think like naming them is cavalier because it's real.

There's. Physical threat to children's wellbeing and teacher's wellbeing as it relates to gun violence in schools, as it relates to covid in schools, as it relates to a variety of other things, those being the two most prominent. So that comparison is a real one that I've never heard before, and then I really am gonna take away with me.

But two, I hear a little bit about the isolation factor that relates to Henry's comment about the absence of, of belonging and wellbeing. And secondarily, this other piece about personal legacy. What I'm hearing is that we just have a lot to expect from teachers. We are really asking them to sustain through these hard times so they can get to the place where they can celebrate and feel that individual and personal legacy and make connections.

How do they do that? Does anybody wanna jump in here? Like how can teachers in schools. The kind of goal of getting more connected to other teachers in the field, as Dr. Mulrennan named, and two, sustaining through the most challenging parts of their career so they can get to a place where they are feeling like they're making an impact on the, those that they're serving in their, the community around them.

One of the things teachers think solely about when they enter the profession is the kids or the. They may not necessarily be kids, and we all get that, but they should in equal measure, be thinking about how they're establishing their own skills in collaboration and access to their peers for support, the most successful teachers have support from their peers.

That that is a key component. Yes. You know, there is always this strife, if you will, between the US and them, meaning the administration and the actual teachers. That exists in every school around the world, I think. So that's important. I'm not saying that it's not important to have trust from the administration and have things moving smoothly, but the real support comes across managing across and a teacher really setting a plan for getting support from peers, establishing relationships with peers, and reaching out and.

That will give them a higher sense of wellbeing than a, a teacher who is more isolated. So how have we seen successful schools do this? Henry Leigh, like I know you're in and around schools consistently as part of your roles and the work that you do. How can schools create and foster environments where they, this teachers are making these connections that Dr.

Morn is naming? Yeah, I have a lot of, different thoughts about what Dr. Mulrennan shared in, in terms of her analysis. I think first thing that just kind of strikes me, I'm assuming that the analysis that you did was before the pandemic. Is that right? In terms of Yes. It's a meta-analysis across many industries and professions.

Correct. Right. And so the fortitude and grit that we talked about, you know, in terms of teachers kind of outlasting this period of time where they do face disillusionment and they burn out, that was not during a pandemic. So I just want to kind of pose back to the group and to the people listening to think.

How, how much the pandemic potentially adds in terms of how teachers may need to get through this period of disillusionment. So I just think that that's something that we're, everyone's still, you know, trying to figure out right now is how much are we currently adding to the plate of teachers where, you know, it really is going to have a big impact ultimately on retention of teachers and, and this quote unquote great resignation.

I think the second piece, you know, in terms of thinking about what teachers can do to sustain themselves, so I completely agree with you and I really do relate to that data point you shared in terms of teachers feeling connected to other teachers and, and them helping to sustain each other to stay in the profession.

Me personally, I was searching for authentic mentors my first year teaching, and I found the best English teacher and the best history teacher at the school, which were the two subjects that I taught. And I finally convinced them they were best friends with each other to come watch me teach. And I thought that was just like a huge win, and I kept kind of pushing them.

And please, please, please, and finally they did come in the spring and they sat in the back of my class and they, they really gave me an extremely positive review and feedback. And it was the first time that I truly felt successful because my principal seemed to kind of mail in the reviews and evaluation that she did.

And so it was really true, like authentic. Praise from people that I knew understood. The students understood exactly what I was trying to accomplish. Those two teachers left at the end of my first year and I had spent a lot of time kind of getting them on my team. And so then I went to the school where I eventually, where I worked with Hayley, and pretty much the exact same thing happened.

Where my, I spent a lot of time gaining relationships with other teachers to the point where they would support me and then they left at the end of my third year. And so I just think that your question, Hayley, I think that there are things. That administrators can do kind of with the understanding of what Dr.

Morn shared to support their staff. Because I frankly didn't know what Dr. Mulrennan shared when I was a teacher. Like that would've been really useful information for me to say, you know, Henry, if you want to get through this, you, you're gonna be disillusioned. I knew that. , but if you want to get through this disillusionment period, here's some things that you can do to to promote your wellbeing.

And so I do think administrators with their focus on trying to support students, ultimately the goal is to get the best outcomes that they can for their students. Support them, academically and socially, emotionally. You know, with that goal in mind, what they can do is provide this information to teachers and then provide opportunities for, there to be clear mentorships within the school for there to be across observations happening at the school to provide collaboration opportunities as well.

and so I, you know, I think that there's, you know, a lot to kind of unpack from what Dr. Mulrennan shared, but those are some of my initial thoughts. I'm thinking back to the fact that I lived with four other teachers for two, three years of my time while I was in the early stages of my teaching life, and it was a happy accident.

I guess it's what maybe sustained me over the, over a decade that I spent in school. Four out of the five of those folks ares. Still in and around education, which I also wonder if it's correlational or causational. I don't think that I can do a, a proper analysis on that, but it has me thinking. Leigh, I'm wondering, you see a lot of schools, you see a lot of teachers.

Is this landing true for you as well? Definitely. And one thing that we've thought a lot about is like, what are the base needs of our corps member and our first year teachers? So this year we rolled out a stronger financial package. So all of our incoming corps member get a $5,000 baseline support, which will just help them get to the classroom so they can focus on learning, right.

And training. And they can focus on student impact. And then we also have need-based financial support that we offer folks who are just getting started, because transitioning into this career does require a lot of. Supports and on top of all the challenges that our corps member face, like having that additional financial worry, it was a lot on them.

And so we're hoping to mitigate that and make the experience more financially viable for a lot of our corps member who are really passionate about doing this work, but have a lot on their plate. So that's something we've thought a lot about and we've also partnered with, an organization to provide some mental health benefits to our corps member as well.

We think that's really important in sustaining them through this period of disillusionment. For sure. And then as part of the teacher American network, like you have access to other first year. Other people who are like-minded, other people who specifically chose to teach in classrooms with students who, who are experiencing systemic racism and oppression.

And so that is a social network you have access to who we encourage you to reach out to. And so I do think, you know, you see teachers, no matter how they get into the field, sometimes self isolate like, Dr. Mulrennan noted. But I do think there's a lot of encouragement and instead of to get involved and be, part of the network, which helps to sustain, our first year corps member a lot.

I think the financial namings that y'all have kind of put forth this year. Speak to Maslow's hierarchy again in that deficiency needs section. Really making sure that they can focus on what matters by taking care of some of those safety needs and also the mental health services, taking care of their psychological needs as well.

So probably a huge impact on the corps member this year, having had that addition. You know, this is heavy, right? Like to Henry's point is and to Dr. Mulrennan's research, this was hard before , but it is infinitely harder now that we're contending with health concerns on a regular basis for the folks in your classroom, around your classroom.

Even the way that you interact with your peers is different. There is, to your point, Dr. Mulrennan, in no lunchroom in part because covid shut it down in many school districts, there isn't happy hour after school because for for many people, they may not be comfortable yet. Some may have returned to some of those habits and, and hopefully it's serving them well, but it is still a very significant challenge to have the maybe unstructured forms of connectivity that I know teachers lived really heavily on.

Or maybe that was just me. But we spent a lot of Friday evenings together and a lot of Saturday weekends together. My teacher friends to really just enjoy life and maybe give us some more energy and things for the week that was up. But they don't have that right now. So I think it's a very valid point to note that the research is still coming out of how teachers can develop the resiliency needed through the pandemic.

I'm wondering if anybody has a particular thought or feeling about how schools can particularly front end some of this for teachers. One of the things I've been thinking a lot about in the career I have working at iTutor is about the raw and honest way we can portray for folks who want to get into this line of work, what it is they're getting into as they get there.

Right. I'm noticing there's some discontinuity between what teachers want when they first get into the career. Dr. Mulrennan, you know, Leigh Henry, you all kind of name, they wanna be with kids, they want us support kids, they wanna make a difference. How can we, when in the hiring process, ensure that teachers understand what lies ahead of them?

If you look at the scope of, work, every industry, every profession over the past two decades, there is, shrinking, shockingly so shrinking minority of positions that offer something like a pension. And even though teachers pensions have greatly changed over the past two decades, they still exist, which is incredible.

So if you look at the context of all industries and all professions, teachers are public servants in the context of their work, and they receive some benefit that other industries and other people. So, it's huge. It's hugely admirable. I mean, you cannot overstate that at all. Absolutely, yes. And the reason I'm saying that specifically is, when I was a school psychologist, I, you know, had teachers who left the profession and then quite frankly, they struggled as they got on in their career and they regretted, oh my gosh, if I had just stuck with the schools, I would've been able to retire if I.

Stuck with, I would've been able to, I would've been able to. So in that way, the rest of the world is, is is somewhat different. So I'm just speaking pragmatically here. Also, when I mentioned before, like grit and fortitude, you know, there's a cycle and a season to teaching that does not exist in other professions.

So if you are a teacher, you have the capability of taking. Huge advantage of those seasons, your seasons of the year. Think about this. If you are an insurance salesperson or you work in an office, there's zero season. Every day is the same. Every week is the same. And, and so one of the things I try and tell people is to really set a strategy that includes your wellbeing and because your.

Cadence is so different than any other profession. You have a way of succeeding in wellbeing and self-care that very few other professionals have take advantage of it. So I, I just wanted to throw those in there, that there's a lot of advantages to being a teacher that focus on the self and to keep those in mind.

I think some of those positives you're naming can really, if utilize the right way, help educators through the, the, their own tough seasons. To your point, I know not everybody has the necessary benefit of taking advantage of summer in the way that they want to because of financial circumstance. So that can be a challenge.

but hopefully, you know, seeking out independent opportu. To really repair, restore, and uh, you know, the term is overused, but use self-care can be really impactful. So just to go back to the other question, because I'm curious, you know about the onboarding phase, right? The onboarding phase of teachers.

What do you think we should be telling teachers, right? Like, I'd love to hear from all of you here. What do you think we should be telling them at the beginning of their careers that may help them anticipate some of the challenges we're naming in order to overcome? Even before the onboarding phase in our interview, we have changed our interview approach.

So we now have a case exercise where we share data about, racial disparities in discipline in schools, and we talk about it in our interview, right? We explicitly named the classrooms that we work in, how students are experiencing systemic racism and oppression. We ask, what does that mean for their own identity?

What does that mean for them? Working with students who may and may not share their, I. And so I think we're very direct in the interview process around like what Teach For America believes, how we're working towards ending educational inequity and have asking each person we're interviewing to reflect on that for themselves, right?

Is this something that they really a hundred percent believe in and also wanna be a part of? And I think that sets a really clear expectation for like what they're gonna get as they. The training and onboarding than what they might see as a classroom teacher. And then a lot of our core identifies as coming from a low income background, being a first generation college student, identifies as black, indigenous, or a person of color, and have experienced going to many of the schools where we work themselves.

And so it, a lot of this is not a surprise, it's their lived experience. Yeah, there have been, traditional issues around teachers being trained to teach eighth grade science. And maybe they're, that's where they got their expertise. Or in the summer they were going into the school year expecting to teach eighth grade science, and they were creating their curriculum for that.

And then at the last second they find out they also have to teach seventh grade science or maybe they have to teach. And that creates a couple really big problems. So the first is they're not prepared for the curriculums they're going to develop, and that's gonna impact the students negatively, but it's also gonna impact the teacher because the.

We're not gonna feel as effective. And we have a category around self-efficacy in our, in our survey. And when we share that back with districts and principals, what we say is, you want to be in the positive here. So you know, teachers are feeling like they're effective. That's where you want to be. What you want to pay attention to is the 15% who are not feeling effective because, a, we know that teachers, are accurate in terms of their self rating, so they're telling you that they're not making enough of an impact with students.

And then b, we know if they're less effective, they're more likely to leave. So there, there's a lot of issues around, well, I would say positively framed. You know, you want to make sure that the training that the teacher receives and how they're being set up for the school year is around the duties that they are going to be executing in the school year.

I think, you know, we also have a question around where the expectations for your role clearly laid out, when you were interviewing and, and onboarding. And so I think you just want to. As honest as you possibly can with teachers about exactly the situation that they're going to be in and the students that they're going to be teaching and you know what the curriculum they'll be responsible for too.

And Dr. Mulrennan, what do you think on the early stages, the beginning of an interview process or maybe someone who's starting out in the career that's, you know, posting on a chat board somewhere. What advice do you give the new teacher to help them be successful? Well, the reality here is a lot of the responsibility lies with administration.

The work should be put into things like interviewing, onboarding, setting expectations, not on the teacher. The teacher is there to make sure to convey the curriculum, build relationships with students, and make sure effective teaching happens. So when we're looking at establishing the best, ideally, you know, nest for a teacher when they're first there, you know that responsibility lies with administration.

And if they want to begin things off with a high sense of trust, all of those things have to be done. If you don't set clear expectations, both sides are losing. That's a, a huge component. Research in I/O psychology has found thatonboarding involves only two things and two things only creating a sense of belonging.

We've talked about that so much, Henry, you introduced it and it's just so incredibly important, creating a sense of belonging and clarity. And clarity is mostly about establishing very clear expectations and also things like how you get things done around here. What, how do you, how do you communicate with your administrators?

Where do you get copies made? Who's the person that really can make those copies? If there's a restriction on teachers making copies, like those are hugely important. , definitely. So the good news is onboarding involves only two areas, but it really rests with the administration to do it right, not on the teacher when they're just starting out.

I think that that's a fair statement and, and is one that teachers can hold to heart, but not to be overly reductive, I am taking away from this, in terms of that sense of belonging. We're gonna tell teachers to be like Henry, right? We're gonna suggest that teachers go after mentors, go after colleagues to befriend.

Find someone that you can share funny stories with and who can uplift you when things are challenging, find someone to lesson plan with some of the most impactful. Experiences I had professionally were going to the public library every Sunday morning with one of my colleagues to pick out picture books for the upcoming week that we wanted to use in order to teach our lessons.

It wasn't about the actual texts we were choosing that tho, but the, that was important too. It was about spending time with this woman who was doing the same work as me, facing many of the same challenges I was facing, and, and being able just to talk about it regularly. So, I'm gonna, I'm gonna make my advice be around, find your people, find your people to connect with.

I like the, the description of lateral kind of connectivity being the most impactful. It's huge. I know it made, it personally anecdotally made a huge difference for me. And clearly I've kept in touch with some of those people, right? Two of them are on the podcast today. Fortunately, now I have a third to add to the connection that I could talk about all these topics with at any time.

Yeah, I think that's a perfect place to wrap up our conversation here today. I think there are a lot of takeaways, both for teachers and for administrators, and I wanna say a deep, deep, deep thank you to each of you, to you Leigh, to you, Henry, and to you Dr. Mulrennan, for giving your time this morning. To share out some of what our kind of antecedents are, our problems are, and what some of our solutions are to make this a better experience for teachers to retain them in the classroom.

Thank you so much to each of you for joining me today. Thank you. Thank you, Hayley. Thank you Hayley. And thanks to all our listeners who tuned in to hear the great Resignation teacher edition. Thanks for listening to the Learning Can't Wait podcast. If you liked what you heard, please rate, review, and share this episode.

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