Date of Award
2002
Document Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Education
Department
EdD Program for Educational Leaders
Advisor
John Reynolds
Committee Member
Claudia Santin
Keywords
administrators, attrition, career growth opportunities, cohort analysis, collegial relationships, cultural segments, demographic characteristics, district retention, employee retention rates, employment, first five years, Florida, Florida universities, funding, instructional professionals, interviews, M-DCPS, Miami-Dade County Public Schools, newly hired teachers, organizational factors, out-of-state teachers, personnel, personal factors, population growth, recruitment efforts, retention, salaries, school districts, school-site administrators, South Florida, student population, teachers, teacher retention, teaching force, universities
Abstract
Miami-Dade County Public Schools (M-DCPS) is the area’s largest employer with 21,399 instructional professionals. During the 2000-2001 school year, 3,100 new teachers were hired in the district due mainly to growth in the student population and attrition of personnel.
The purpose of this practicum was to identify the personal and organizational factors that have contributed to teachers’ decisions to remain employed in M-DCPS during the first five years of employment. The initial cohort of teachers selected for this study was 1,015 newly hired teachers during the 1996-97 school year. The sample population selected for this study was 749 teachers from the original teacher cohort who remained employed in the district during the 2000-2001 school year.
The first phase of the study included a five-year cohort analysis of M-DCPS teachers, plotting employee retention rates by selected demographic characteristics. The second phase of the study surveyed 222 randomly selected teachers remaining employed in the district from the original 1996-97 cohort of new teachers hired. The third phase of the study surveyed teachers and school-site administrators selected for individual interviews.
Conclusions based on the data revealed that students who graduated from Florida universities tend to remain in teaching more so than those who come from out-of-state because they have a better grasp of the cultural segments of the South Florida community. Furthermore, other sources of funding need to be allocated to enhance salaries and career growth opportunities for teachers. In addition, collegial relationships are important to the retention of teachers. Additional research should be conducted in relationship to why South Florida residents tend to return to the area to work as teachers and the reasons as to why they do this. In turn, colleges and universities as well as school districts can review their recruitment efforts and plan programs to enhance the teaching force in the district.