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Wednesday, May 22, 2013

Brain Drain

Anecdotal accounts make it appear that many experienced staff members are leaving the district - even taking positions in other districts for less money.  Now there can be a lot of reasons for staff turnover but whatever the reason it should not be taken lightly.

The exit interviews with district staff are very perfunctory.  Mostly about COBRA benefits and when the last paycheck will be delivered.  Generally, just the bare minimum for the District to cover its legal butt.

Unlike most businesses and many school districts, the Human Resources department apparently does not track why employees decide to leave.  It has been this way for years.  These are valuable questions to ask.  Is the employee leaving to seek another job in another school district?  Why?  Are they retiring?  Are they retiring earlier than expected?  Why?  Are they leaving the teaching profession entirely?  Why?

9 comments:

  1. This really perplexes me. Such valuable information could be gained in these interviews. Why wouldn't HR, the superintendent, and the school board want to know? Is it because the answers to these questions in any type of formal report are "sunshineable" and the district doesn't want embarrassing answers or trends made public? Is it laziness? Or has this opportunity never occurred to HR? Has it never occurred to a board member to ask for this data? If I were a board member, I would certainly want to know.

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    1. They DON'T want to know or they would ask. Just guessing from this comment, and I do not mean this in a derogatory way, I'm guessing that this post is not written by an employee of the district. I say that, because you are correct; normal businesses and school districts would want this information. Sadly, anyone who works in this district knows that gathering that sort of data would shed way too much light on the plummeting effects of job satisfaction since the beginning of this administrations era.

      Bottom line . . . they don't care. They don't want experience or intelligence. They want yes men and people who are either not intelligent enough to question their intentions, or are totally fine with being micromanaged. Administrators and teachers who have agendas and address them at the district level aren't kept around for very long.

      Another reason is that this administration has been nothing but money hungry. They are thrilled to get rid of a teacher who makes $60K+ so they can pay a newbee $30K.

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  2. Can't speak for any other schools, but there are at least two, maybe three experienced teachers at THS who are taking early retirement because they are sick of the district junk. In addition, there are some experienced teachers who learned through perfunctory emails that they had been involuntarily transferred. No explanation given. In Truman's question/answer session with Dr. Herl, one retiring teacher told him how cold the exit interview was. He tried to make light of it and looked like a real idiot. The bottom line is the punitive and secretive nature of the district is chasing fabulous teachers out of the classroom.

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  3. My exit interview was not an "Interview" in any sense of the word. I was handed my certificate and transcripts, told how much I would be paid for my unused sick leave, and shuffled down to the benefits office (who, by the way, were very good to work with) to discuss COBRA, etc. It was obvious that Linda Gray Smith regarded the entire process as a pain in the butt and was not the least bit interested in asking me anything; my "Exit Interview" with her lasted less than four minutes.

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    1. Just out of curiosity, has anyone had an exit interview where they were either directly or indirectly advised not to discuss district information? I know of a handful of people who can not speak about their qualms with the district. And the people of whom I am speaking would LOVE to out the district on many levels; so if they're staying silent, they had to be given some fairly severe consequences if they failed to comply. Any answers?

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  4. Perhaps if they collected information about WHY massives of people are leaving, it would have to be made public in some fashion. That wouldn't do, now would it?!

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  5. I can tell you that in a school with a small staff, we had 7 staff members leave this year because of the outrageous behavior of both the district and school leadership as well as the behavior and safety issues in the schools. These were very dedicated and very wonderful teachers. I wouldn't hesitate to have any of my children in their classroom. The district is worse off for the loss of these educators. Some of these staff members even left with no job lined up simply because they couldn't stomach the thought of spending another year in a vindictive, secretive, and adversarial environment created by the district administrators.

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  6. I was terminated on the last day of school 2015 without warning. No cause or reason was given and there was NO exit interview.

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