Building sustainable support systems for educator retention and growth.

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​Teacher Development Network LLC supports educational organizations worldwide in developing and optimizing professional learning and coaching systems for educators at all stages of development. Whether you are looking to improve preservice coaching, early career mentoring, or create supports for veteran teachers and leaders, our goal is to enhance retention and teacher quality, ensuring all students have access to a great teacher every year. 

We work with:
  1.  Educator Preparation Programs. Field experiences are a crucial part of the pathway to becoming a teacher. Early career teachers routinely report they learned much of what they do in classrooms in their field placements. We help teacher preparation programs ensure field experiences are set up for success by focusing on the development of the teacher preparation program and school staff that guide novices through these experiences.​
  2. Public and Independent P-12 Schools. Beginning to teach in your own classroom is a challenging experience and many don't make it past their first years. When novice teachers have frequent and ongoing access to trained, high-quality mentors, they stay longer, grow their skills faster, and drive student achievement. Learning doesn't stop when induction ends, however! Schools need systems to continue engaging and growing veteran educators as well. Ongoing instructional coaching is proven to help retain and grow strong veteran educators. Further, developing strong instructional mentoring and coaching programs creates important teacher leadership opportunities for mid-career educators looking to stay in their classrooms.
  3. Education Agencies and Organizations. Policy sets the stage for the success of educators in your region, network, state, or organization. We work with policy makers to develop standards, guidance documents, and other policies that can help improve access to quality educator support systems at every stage of development.
​If you are ready to improve educator recruitment, retention, and quality,
​Teacher Development Network LLC can help you make that happen. ​​

6 Reasons to Invest in Educator Support Right Now

 It takes time to be a great teacher.

Great teachers are developed, not born. Teaching is hard work and requires teachers to master a wide range of knowledge and skills. Studies suggest it takes 3-5 years of teaching before a novice reaches a level where they can really make a positive impact on student learning. When nearly 50% of all new teachers leave the profession within the first five years, many never reach their full potential. This number is even higher for teachers of color, those working in urban areas, and those working in independent schools.
Want to learn more? Check out this research brief from University of Pennsylvania researcher, Dr. Richard Ingersoll.

Teacher turnover is expensive.

Teachers report that they leave their classrooms, and the students who need them most, when they feel unprepared or unsupported. This revolving door costs U.S. schools over $7 billion annually-money that could otherwise be invested in the human capital development of educators. But it's not just about the money. The high rate of teacher turnover saps schools of talent. Each year, approximately 15.2 million of our nation's students in high-poverty schools pay the price of a less effective new teacher at the front of their classroom.
Want to know what it is costing you? Check out this​ cost calculator from the Learning Policy Institute.

Expert coaches help teachers grow faster.

When carefully selected, rigorously trained instructional mentors and coaches regularly work with educators from preservice to retirement as part of a system of supports to maximize their potential as educators. High-quality mentoring and coaching accelerates teacher development and dramatically shortens the time it takes to reach their full potential. Efficacious teachers who are connected to a network of supportive colleagues stay longer, do better, and help all kids reach their potential.

Students learn more from effective teachers. 

The New Teacher Project identified five teacher effectiveness levers that can help increase student achievement. Mentoring and coaching lead to improvement in all of them! Having strong systems of support for educators attracts more high quality candidates to your school system and helps retain more effective mid-career teachers. The bottom line is that when expert teachers stay and succeed, students win.

Mentors and coaches benefit, too.

Mid-career teachers serving as instructional mentors or coaches to say they feel invigorated by working with educators. They learn to be metacognitive and articulate about their own practice, think about education topics in new ways, and develop leadership skills that improve their own teaching, their collaborations with colleagues, and are important stepping stones to other administrative roles. Mentors and coaches report staying in education longer because of this positive experience.

COVID made teaching harder than ever.

Even post COVID, novice and veteran teachers alike continue to face unprecedented challenges and changes in schools. Many say they feel alone, frustrated, and tired. And a lot of them are quitting. A highly-trained mentor or coach can bring much-needed connection, structure, and support to isolated teachers, improve efficacy and optimism, and turn challenge into opportunity.
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