Human Capital

Using funding from a Stephen Alfred Leadership Grant, four Smithfield administrators recently attended a DMGroup leadership development meeting in Boston. The goal of the meeting was for district teams to develop strategies for hiring, retaining, and developing the highest quality staff for their districts.  With approximately 80% of school operating costs committed to salaries and benefits, both in Smithfield and beyond, attending to the quality of this important resource is essential. Our team left with a to-do list, as well as a better understanding of good practices for human capital management. In this blog post I’ll share our learnings, as well as our next steps.  

As the presenters explained, human capital management has evolved over the decades, from linking teacher evaluation to student performance in the 2000’s to debates about performance pay in the 2010’s, to an erosion of the teacher evaluation movement and a shift to strategic human capital development in the current era. The growing need for a wider definition of success, warranted by a changing student demographic and new societal needs, requires a change in how we look at teacher effectiveness as well as how we create the conditions for teacher and student success.  

Both locally and nationally, a substantial investment in developing teachers is made, though research has shown that the effectiveness of teachers tends to plateau after three years. Time was provided for participants to chew on these disheartening statistics and to begin to develop a district strategy for continual improvements, along with identifying measures for success.  

In addition, a focus on recruitment and hiring provided more opportunities to critique current district practices and plan for future actions.  The most important concept to the hiring discussion was the idea that the best strategy is to retain the talented staff you have. Nationally, 1 out of every 6 teachers leave their current job each year and 44% of teachers quit teaching within the first five years.  In Smithfield, our statistics are much brighter, but our team identified the need to conduct exit interviews and to track the reasons why teachers either leave the district or move from school to school in order to address any emerging issues. We also asked ourselves, what steps are we taking to improve the working experience for teachers?

Even with the best retainment strategies, teachers eventually retire or new district needs are identified, resulting in the need for hiring new staff.  While the logistics for posting positions, carrying out interviews, and hiring and onboarding new staff are firmly established, the presenters provided information and prompting for discussions about how we attract new teachers to the district, partner with area colleges for fresh talent, and make our district as attractive as possible to the very best educators.  We discussed, How do we market ourselves to potential hires? What are our values and how do these values align to our process for hiring and induction?

The remaining time focused on developing leaders and succession planning.  In small districts like Smithfield, the challenge is anticipating leadership openings.  Developing leaders and having those individuals leave the district for leadership positions elsewhere can feel a bit self-destructive, though the need for leaders throughout the state is evident and we all have a responsibility for the greater good of our state and region.  Partnerships and regional organizations, such as the Northwest Consortium, a network of five districts, including Smithfield, may serve as a means for developing leaders across our region.  

The entire contents of the 2-day meeting could not possibly be related in a short blog post but it suffices to say that our team learned much and had time and opportunity to discuss how we can develop human capital strategies for ensuring that Smithfield has the best conditions for both teaching and learning.  Our next steps include the following:

  • Push out social media specifically about working in Smithfield. (Consider how Southwest connects their values to their identification of future employees.)
  • Improve landing page for SchoolSpring (our posting site) to better market our district.
  • Establish relationships with additional colleges/teacher preparation programs. (Worcester State, Bridgewater, J&W, RIC, URI, Eastern CT, Roger Williams)
  • Analyze data about why people are leaving us or changing schools.
  • Hire an HR director to help us improve our hiring process and collect data to inform practices relating to recruiting and hiring.
  • Start the onboarding experience as soon as staff are hired.
  • Include in the hiring process efforts to sell our district. What makes the Smithfield culture the Smithfield culture?  What are our values? What do we stand for? Can you (the potential employee) get on board with that?
  • Continue to work on School Committee policies – revise compensation policy for administration, expectations for hiring.
  • Finish hiring manual.
  • In collaboration with NWC, develop a leadership program for department chairs and informal teacher leaders, providing them valuable skills for their current roles and increasing the possibility that  some will get a spark for administrative positions.
  • Consider structures for other educator leadership positions.
  • Establish informal leadership positions, whenever possible. 
  • Define, identify, and reach out to high-potentials in our district.

Acknowledgements:  Information in this blog post was taken directly from the meeting content provided by the DMGroup in November of 2019.  For more information about the DMGroup, go to: https://www.dmgroupk12.com/

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *