In her new book, Building a Strong Foundation: How School Leaders Can Help New Teachers Succeed and Stay, principal Michelle Hope addresses the critical challenge of teacher retention. With more than 40 percent of teachers leaving the profession within their first five years—and recent surveys suggesting this number could rise to 55 percent—school leaders need practical strategies to support and retain their newest educators.
Hope's book provides a comprehensive approach to supporting new teachers in six key areas of practice, from building relationships to ensuring equity. Drawing on her years of experience as a school leader, she offers practical strategies leaders can use to help teachers build confidence and competence during their critical first years in the classroom.
Classroom management is a common challenge for new teachers, but Hope provides practical tools and frameworks to support them in developing effective strategies. The following two excerpts from her book offer actionable guidance.
Maintaining Positive Student-Teacher Relationships
So much of maintaining classroom relationships involves warm and effective communication. Essentially, teachers are charged with effectively communicating with students in a way that not only does not damage the established relationship but also maintains and fosters it. And while most communication in the classroom is neutral in aspect, there is typically opportunity for a teacher to both foster and fragment relationships when giving directions, reinforcing directions, or providing feedback or correction. Consider the scenarios in Figure 3.3 that foster classroom relationships against those that might fragment them.
Figure 3.3
Scenarios for Student-Teacher Interaction
The Scenario | Interactions That Foster Relationships | Interactions That Fragment Relationships |
|---|---|---|
| The teacher gives the students directions. Several students are off task and not following the given directions. | The teacher gives specific directions and reinforces them by narrating compliance: “Thank you, John, for following our norms and listening to directions the first time." | The teacher proceeds with the lesson despite students being off task; the teacher raises their voice and tells students to move a clip/card or go to the office. |
| Two students get into an argument and begin hitting each other. | The teacher calls the students’ names and asks the students individually what happened and facilitates conflict resolution. The teacher and students come up with a plan for how they might act differently next time. The teacher tells the students they believe in them and know they will do better. | The teacher yells at the students to stop and immediately takes the students to the office; the teacher tells them that they are bad and that they are disappointed in them. |
| A student refuses to complete the given assignment. | The teacher pulls the student aside and asks if there is anything wrong. The teacher gives the student the opportunity to reset and join the activity. | The teacher ignores the student and gives them a zero; the teacher calls the student out in front of the class and says, “That’s why you’re failing." |
In each case, interactions that fragment classroom relationships rely on shame or humiliation, while those that help foster and maintain relationships remind students that they are cared for. Leaders can support new teachers in this phase by practicing these interactions “off-stage” using these sample scenarios.
Encourage Correction Through Reflection and Change
New teachers need quick, noninvasive ways to help correct student behavior without damaging the student–teacher relationship that they've worked so hard to build. Generally, we can support teachers with some simple guidelines for “correcting” behavior. Teachers might consider the process as described in Figure 4.3.
Children are children and so will sometimes need reminding of the expectations, but after the teacher has made action to correct the behavior, it is necessary for the teacher to move into the restorative phase. The fact is, in order for teachers to see a true change in a student’s repeated off-task behavior, it is important that they understand their students and that the students themselves understand what they did “wrong,” why they did it, the impact of their behavior, and then how to come up with a plan to “do it better next time.”
Building a Strong Foundation
How school leaders can help new teachers build critical skills and confidence during their first five years in the classroom.
Dr. Michelle Hope is a National Board–certified educator with extensive teaching, district-level coaching, and school leadership experience. She has a passion for public education, curriculum writing, teacher development, and school improvement planning and considers the opportunity to work with teachers and students an honor. She is currently serving as a school principal at a preK–5 elementary school in Memphis, Tennessee. Follow her on X (formerly Twitter).
