The State of Jewish Day School Faculty Climate in 2024

By Dr. Harry Bloom, Founder and President, Benchmarking for Good, Inc.

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Improving Faculty Climate to Boost Retention

By Dr. Harry Bloom, Founder and President, Benchmarking for Good, Inc.

Previously Featured in JEIC Online Publication, jewishchallenge.org

The recent Prizmah/JEIC reports that indicated that Jewish day schools need to take steps to enhance faculty retention is very much on target. Recent faculty climate surveys conducted by Benchmarking for Good with nearly 1000 educational personnel from 16 diverse Jewish day schools indicates that ~⅔ of Jewish day school teachers have more than 11 years of teaching experience and nearly half have over 15 years’ experience.

Coupling heavy seniority with the fact that only half of teachers are satisfied with the competitiveness of their salary –suggests that this is a situation that is ripe for potential attrition. While salary is not at the very top of teachers’ hierarchy of wishes, 67% of teachers indicate that receiving a competitive salary is very important to them in terms of choosing an employer.

Teachers Have an “Employer of Choice” Enthusiasm Gap

Additional support for the existence of an enthusiasm gap among teachers is their response to the question: “How likely are you to recommend that a friend or family member work at your school?” When we calculate a Net Promoter Score which is developed by subtracting the percentage of teachers unlikely to recommend working at their school to a friend or family members from the percentage that would be very likely to do so we get a relatively low score of 35%. In contrast, the comparable Net Promoter Score for Educational Administrators is 65%. Thus, the teachers are much less enthusiastic about their school being an employer of choice than their bosses!

Strengthening Retention by Focusing on What Drives Employment Preference

Utilizing statistical correlation analysis applied to the Benchmarking for Good Faculty Climate Survey database, it is possible to determine which employment related factors drive teachers’ enthusiasm for their employer. It turns out that four factors correlate most strongly with the propensity for teachers to want to recommend to friends and family that they pursue employment at their school. 

These key factors are the extent to which teachers feel aligned with their school’s Mission; the extent to which they believe their supervisor has a reasonable expectation of their workload; how free teachers feel able to communicate about ideas, concerns and suggestions; and the extent to which teachers feel they have been provided with the tools they need to do their jobs in the form of space, curriculum and technology. By focusing on opening a dialog with their teachers to better understand how to optimize their perceived performance on these factors, school administrators can build strength of affinity among their teachers and thereby enhance retention.

Indicated Actions for School Administrators

Create Public Forums that Encourage Open Faculty Communication and Demonstrate Active Listening and Willingness to Act on Suggestions

Communicate to Faculty About the Rationale for the School Mission and Build Teachers’ Perceived Alignment with the School Mission

Research Specific Faculty Tool Needs and Work to Fund the Acquisition of Required Tools that Enhance their Effectiveness

Encourage Supervisors to Explicitly Discuss and Clarify Teachers’ Workload Expectations Coupled with Steps to Help Them Preserve Work/Life Balance

Finally, attention must be paid to working with board leadership to narrow perceived gaps in salaries relative to competing schools so that teachers feel they are being paid competitively– at least relative to teachers working in area private schools. Where necessary, plan to bridge gaps over multiple years and clearly communicate this intention as part of strategic planning processes.

In Conclusion

A focus by school administrators on how to actively promote faculty retention is a fundamental priority for Jewish day schools due to the seniority of current faculty members, perceptions about non-competitive salaries, and gaps in enthusiasm. By leveraging data derived from faculty climate surveys, school administrators can purposefully target the key factors influencing faculty affinity and retention and thereby safeguard their schools’ most valuable resource.

For information about how your school can participate in Benchmarking for Good’s next round of Faculty Climate Surveys via a no-cost grant, please contact Dr. Harry Bloom at harrybloom@benchmarkingforgood.org

The Vital Importance of Faculty Alignment with School Mission

By Dr. Harry Bloom, Founder and President, Benchmarking for Good, Inc.

Benchmarking for Good’s research among over 800 Jewish day school faculty members in 14 diverse day schools reveals the importance of Faculty being aligned with the school’s Mission. It turns out that this has important implications for school leaders desiring for their school to be “an employer of choice” for faculty.

WHAT EXACTLY DOES “ALIGNMENT” MEAN?

Alignment with Mission means that the faculty members understand the school’s Mission –in essence the “Why” of the school—and agree with it and work individually and in concert with fellow staff members, school families, and the community to support the implementation of its tenets.

SO, EXACTLY HOW ALIGNED WITH SCHOOL MISSION ARE JEWISH DAY SCHOOL FACULTY MEMBERS?

Our 14 school survey results indicate a wide variation among schools relative to the percentage of faculty who strongly align with their school’s Mission.

WHY DOES THE DEGREE OF ALIGNMENT WITH MISSION MATTER?

You might well be asking: How important is this alignment? Or, more pointedly, how important is this alignment relative to faculty members being strong advocates for their school?  The answer is that it is very important. The correlation between a faculty’s degree of alignment with their school’s Mission and their propensity to recommend the school as an employer is 83 percent --which is a very high degree of correlation (strength of correlation is measured by how close the correlation percentage is to 100%). In contrast the correlation percentage between factors such “I like my job” or “I like my work environment” or “I am proud of my school” and a willingness to recommend that a friend or family member work at their school have a correlation coefficient of about 70 percent.

IMPLICATIONS FOR SCHOOL LEADERS

There are a number of important implications from these findings for day school leaders.

1. It is important for schools to ensure their Mission statements, and the intentions behind them, are understood by faculty, including prospective new faculty members, and that they feel they can be aligned with them.

2. This would include non-Jewish faculty members who might find alignment with a Jewish school’s Mission a bit more challenging. And yet, veteran, successful school leaders like Rabbi Samuel J. Levine have experienced many examples of non-Jewish faculty members who totally embrace their Jewish day school’s Mission and exemplify this support in their interactions with students and other constituencies.

3. It is helpful for school leaders to discuss with faculty, and even role play, what Mission alignment might look like in a classroom or communal school setting.

4. It is vital for school leaders to periodically conduct confidential faculty climate research that includes an assessment of the degree of faculty alignment with school Mission—as well as the extent to which faculty believe their school is an employer of choice.

5. In instances where a faculty’s perceived alignment with school Mission is lower than desirable, open, safe conversations should be conducted to understand why and to discuss ways to increase alignment.

LEVERAGING FACULTY RESEARCH AND BENCHMARKING GRANT OPPORTUNITIES WITH BENCHMARKING FOR GOOD

If you would like to discuss the possibility of securing a no cost Benchmarking for Good grant that will allow you to conduct research that enables you to understand how your school stacks up in terms of faculty alignment with Mission and as a faculty employer of choice, please contact Dr. Harry Bloom at harrybloom@benchmarkingforgood.org

#faculty culture  #school Mission  #employer of choice  #faculty