Title: The Role of the Administrator
Headings: The Role of the Administrator in Teacher Retention
The Role of the Administrator in Teacher Retention
Infrastructure
Content/Skills
Community Involvement and Support
School Leaders Also Need Support

Content: Ensuring that teachers are competent and have opportunities to improve their skills is critical. The school leader needs to be an instructional leader and communicate views on what is considered good teaching, as well as expectations for instructional practices, grading and student achievement. Administrators should share, model and encourage best-practice experimentation. Giving immediate feedback through comments or notes and being available for short, spontaneous counseling sessions are seen by teachers as being very supportive (Colley 2002). For special educators, school leaders should have a working knowledge of IDEA and NCLB so they can communicate with staff, families and the community regarding special education issues (DiPaola, Walther-Thomas, 2003). Teachers have expressed the need for support in the form of performance assessments and evaluations. Leaders should structure formal evaluations around the needs of the teachers. Rather than covering every item on an evaluation checklist, a leader can schedule observations to focus on only a few skills at a time (Colley, 2002). Leaders can encourage teachers to choose an area of improvement and, with the principal, decide how to show evidence of growth in this area (Spitz 2003). Leaders can make sure they respect the learning curve for new teachers, and they can put the teacher’s manual and standards documents into understandable language that is relevant to the way teachers are going to teach (Feiman-Nemser, 2003).