Our school district, Milford Exempted Village Schools, near Cincinnati, Ohio, has achieved a remarkable 92% teacher retention rate despite unprecedented teacher turnover nationwide. This success is due to a remarkable initiative based on the question: What qualities do we expect to see reflected among the educators and support staff working with our students daily? This initiative has transformed how we hire, train and retain our educators.
Superintendent John Spieser credits our district’s proactive approach for this success, including creating a Portrait of a Staff Member. This initiative was inspired by our previous work with Battelle for Kids on our Portrait of an Eagle, which outlined the key qualities we aim to instill in our students. By aligning the characteristics we seek in our staff with our educational vision, Milford has developed a comprehensive strategy to attract, develop and retain top talent.
Engaging all stakeholders
During the 2023-24 school year, our district engaged all stakeholder groups — including students, parents, employees and community members — to create a collective vision called the Portrait of a Milford Staff Member. Importantly, this internally driven effort was completed using our existing tools and talent.
We had a lot of participation from the community in creating our vision for what qualities we expect from our employees. People tend to be very busy these days, and school districts are lucky if they can get even a handful of volunteers to take part in their initiatives. In this case, our response from the community was overwhelming, which speaks to the level of enthusiasm the project generated.
We also ensured we had meaningful feedback from our students, because our portrait needed to reflect the opinions of those our staff members serve every day. It’s not always easy to get feedback from students, especially in the younger grades — but we got parent approval for even our youngest students to participate in surveys so that we had their voices represented.
Our Portrait of a Staff Member
After soliciting feedback from all stakeholder groups, the team in charge of the project distilled this information down to seven key characteristics that we want every staff member to exemplify. These are:
- Kindness: Embodying qualities and behaviors that create a positive and supportive learning environment for students.
- Compassion: Going beyond traditional educational boundaries and prioritizing students’ social and emotional development.
- Empathy: Understanding, sharing and responding to the thoughts and feelings of students in a compassionate and supportive manner.
- Flexibility: Demonstrating adaptability and openness to change in practices, approaches and methodologies. Flexibility is crucial to responding effectively to the diverse needs of students, evolving educational trends and unforeseen challenges.
- Open-mindedness: Possessing a receptive and unbiased attitude by willingly considering and respecting diverse perspectives, ideas and feedback. Open-mindedness involves exploring new concepts, adapting to change and engaging in thoughtful discussions without being rigid or closed-minded.
- Student-centeredness: This approach prioritizes students’ needs, interests and well-being in all aspects of their work. It places the student at the center of the learning experience and focuses on creating an environment that supports students’ growth, development and success first and foremost.
- Curiosity: Strong desire to explore, learn and understand new things. Curiosity is a key trait that drives lifelong learning, innovation and a deeper understanding of the world.
Lessons learned
We learned two fundamental lessons in defining the key traits we want from our employees.
One of our biggest takeaways was how much alignment there was between the various stakeholder groups. Because we received very similar feedback from parents, employees, community members and students, it wasn’t hard to identify common themes and develop a unified portrait. There was a lot of agreement about what those core values should be.
The other lesson was how well our Portrait of a Staff Member aligned with our student portrait. This confirms that we’re on the right track in preparing our graduates for lifelong success.
With more states and school districts creating a Portrait of a Graduate, we must hold our teachers and other staff members to the same expectations as our students. This way, everyone in the district is working in alignment to better themselves and others, and teachers can model and exemplify the qualities that students should embody.
Just as we’ve used the Portrait of an Eagle to guide our efforts in support of high-quality teaching and learning, we plan to align our hiring, evaluation and recognition of employees around the Portrait of a Milford Staff Member.
Having a Portrait of a Graduate ensures that students leave our district with durable skills that prepare them well for college, a career and civic engagement. Having a Portrait of a Staff Member helps us inspire and recognize the exceptional work of our staff while emphasizing that excellent teaching goes beyond just teaching core academic content.
Opinions expressed by SmartBrief contributors are their own.
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