Teacher retention is at a historic low throughout ICSD—largely due to teacher burnout, lack of communication from district administration, and poor salaries, but Cayuga Heights Elementary School (CHES) has proven itself to be extraordinarily poor in its retention rates. As of March 28, the data presented at the ICSD Public Voting Meeting included a projected teacher turnover rate of ninety-two percent, nearly five times the average of the seven other ICSD elementary schools. With so many of their teachers leaving, students and parents at CHES are forced to contend with what will happen in the aftermath. The district has proven itself to be unable to respond to calls of dissatisfaction within a school environment in a timely way, unwilling to invest in higher teacher salaries, and has consistently given off an overall sense of apathy towards how poor teacher retention impacts students’ social and academic goals.
During the Board of Education (BoE) Monthly Voting Meeting on March 28, several parents of students attending CHES spoke during Public Comment regarding worries over their children’s education. They expressed concern regarding the school’s teacher turnover rates, with one noting that their child has had only one year without a teacher leaving mid-year and another stating, “I feel that my children and the dedicated teachers at CHES are being abandoned and that we as parents have nowhere to turn.”
Losing a teacher midyear causes a huge disruption in the learning curriculum and a child’s academic development. Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology analyzed students’ test scores and found that teachers leaving midyear is associated with lower standardized test scores. Although standardized test scores are by no means always the perfect measure of learning, the results show an alarming connection between teachers leaving and students falling behind academically.
Many parents at the meeting were considering enrolling their children in another elementary school. Due to this, open enrollment request rates are predicted to dramatically increase for the 2023-24 school year. However, current district regulations, in effect, limit this option to students with guardians who are able to provide transportation to and from school. This effectively restricts open enrollment to high-income families, while leaving low-income families to bear the brunt of CHES’s poor teacher retention rate, further widening already large gaps in testing scores between students qualifying for Free and Reduced Price Lunch (FRPL) and non-FRPL students.
Retention is a nationwide issue, but CHES serves as a case study into what could be causing larger issues in the district. ICSD should be paying attention to teachers’ working environments and stepping in when there is a clear pattern of turnover. Lisa Sahasarabudhe served as the CHES principal for three years during which time teacher turnover has skyrocketed. In early May of this year, she accepted a new role as the ICSD Equity and Diversity
Officer, with a new CHES principal taking over in July. Although her new position is similar to the Inclusion Officer, held by Mary Grover, it is not yet listed in the school’s directory. Whether or not the position existed prior to Sahasarabudhe’s acceptance is unclear.
“Teachers leave for a variety of reasons,” principal at the time, Lisa Sahasarabudhe, claimed during our interview with her days before she announced her new position. The former principal cited her own career as a teacher in ICSD as proof to why transferring can be a positive. “When I was ready for a change for whatever reason, I was able to move somewhere else to make myself happier,” she said, explaining her three transfers in thirty years of teaching. By the end of our conversation she concluded that change in leadership naturally came with a higher rate of turnover ), maintaining that “none of [the CHES turnover rate] is unusual.” Change in administration is not foreign to ICSD though. Northeast Elementary and Caroline Elementary have both received a new principal in the last two years and yet their projected turnover rates remain low, at twenty-two percent and eleven percent respectively.
CHES teachers expressed apprehension over poor working conditions, echoing the concerns of parents. One classroom teacher of over ten years who requested anonymity due to potential repercussions, shared the frustrations over the lack of communication and guidance of the higher administration. “When I ask building admin questions on building practices, my questions and/or concerns are dismissed or responded to with an authoritative response, similar to ‘because I said so.’ I do not feel my concerns are fully listened to … quick, unthoughtful responses are given.” Furthermore, decisions are made with the involvement of very few people, and only those who choose to attend meetings outside of time in the contract are able to contribute to major decisions. “This feels disrespectful of our contract and time and adds to the feeling of not having a voice.” Such actions may have contributed to the high turnover rates observed over the past several months.
As for any official reason as to why these teachers could be leaving, no official exit interviews are being conducted to oversee retention in ICSD. Sahasrabudhe said she always kept her door open to teachers wanting to speak about why they are leaving, but has not received significant results from this. The former principal stressed that she could only guess why teachers are leaving, which begs the question of why ICSD is not taking more proactive steps to create usable exit interview data. The CHES teacher we spoke with was concerned with the lack of timeliness in addressing the poor retention, “[The] problem has only very recently been acknowledged by the principal. This is very little, very late.” Additionally, this leaves ICSD with another task: filling the positions of retired and resigned teachers. The district has already been having trouble hiring teachers—earlier this school year, the Ithaca Teachers Association (ITA) found that thirty teachers were teaching a subject they were unqualified for across the district.
With this in mind, there must be an extra effort to ensure that every classroom at CHES has a qualified teacher. “Finding eight teachers will be a nearly impossible task. We fear our son and many children will not have certified teachers in the classroom,” Stacy Errichiello, a CHES parent and a teacher in the district, stated.
As The Tattler has mentioned before (see “ICSD: If our teachers are leaving, where does that leave us?,” February 2023), teacher retention is reaching a tipping point in the district, and CHES has become an unfortunate example. The social and academic effects on students are real and will become more and more apparent in the coming years. ICSD needs to protect its students by protecting its teachers. ICSD’s broad and idealistic equity goals cannot be worked towards without supporting teachers, giving them the resources, support, and incentives they need. Dramatic action must be taken, along with clear communication on what steps the district is undertaking to fix this issue that has the potential to be truly detrimental for all students and inequitably affect FRPL students. Although Lisa Sahasarbudhe, someone who bore much of the criticism for the retention rate, has left, the problem remains—CHES will open in the fall and many of its long term, most qualified teachers will not be there.