Tracking Employee Retention in RPS
What does five years of employee retention data tell us about the state of RPS?
Thanks to a Freedom of Information Act request with Richmond Public Schools, data is available regarding annual employee retention data by demographic at every school in RPS since the 2018–2019 school year. Some of that data was charted to visualize employee retention numbers across the district and employee retention rates at each school, and those charts are available here.
A few notes regarding this data: this is data for all employees, not just teachers. So when comparing retention data from teachers, this data will vary from those general trends. Also, in cases where schools had only one or two members of any one demographic group and an ensuing loss or gain in that employee group by one or two, the percentage retention rate for that group can drop dramatically from 100% to 0% and vice-versa. In those circumstances, the charts can make it seem like a dramatic loss in retention has happened and skew one’s immediate perception of the data when that’s not necessarily the case.
Why FOIA the employee retention data for RPS? For one, abundant research indicates that teacher retention matters to student outcomes across the board. That is why teachers and other advocates fought successfully to include teacher retention as a part of Dreams4RPS, the five-year strategic plan for RPS. And because these elements are a part of Dreams4RPS, the RPS Administration must track and present data on teacher retention and satisfaction to the public and to the School Board.
Including data for all employees in RPS also broadens the public’s understanding of how well RPS has retained both teachers and other support staff in buildings. It has been well publicized that schools across the district face significant staffing shortages and, again, these shortages ultimately impact student outcomes because there are not enough adults in the building to care for students.
Furthermore, employee satisfaction and retention issues across the district, and specifically at Linwood Holton Elementary School, have been a topic of interest since staff satisfaction survey results were made public in October 2022. These issues have garnered attention from parents, teachers, the press, and the Superintendent. Following two listening sessions at Linwood Holton Elementary School, Superintendent Kamras has maintained that teacher retention and satisfaction numbers at the school are correlated with race (i.e. Black employees are satisfied and thus stay at the school, and white employees are not satisfied and thus leave the school). This statement raises a variety of questions.
Does the data support the Superintendent’s statement? Not based on the numbers from the teacher satisfaction survey and certainly not based on the below employee retention data. This data demonstrates generally high and above-average retention in 2018–2019 with subsequent declines to numbers that are lower than the district average.
But beyond whether or not the facts support Superintendent Kamras’ assertions, the bigger question is why Superintendent Kamras IS NOT holding listening sessions at schools across RPS that demonstrate a similar decline in employee retention, such as Binford Middle School, Miles J. Jones Elementary School, George W. Carver Elementary School, and Thomas H. Henderson Middle School.
Superintendent Kamras also promised to hold retroactive and anonymous exit interviews at Linwood Holton Elementary School to get to the reasons behind the school’s staff satisfaction and retention issues. Why is he doing this for Linwood Holton Elementary School and no other school? Just because that community has been a bit louder? This is a massive injustice to former and current staff (and thus students) across the district.
What about schools like John B. Cary Elementary School and Westover Hills Elementary School that show a dramatically bigger decline in Black or African American staff, something that stands out in a majority Black or African American school district?
Why aren’t we studiously modeling schools such as Barack Obama Elementary School, Ginter Park Elementary School, Broad Rock Elementary School, John Marshall High School, and Franklin MIlitary Academy, all of which show positive or neutral employee retention, avoiding the district’s declining retention trendline?
Why isn’t the RPS Administration hyper-focused on the biggest headline of all from this data? The sharp decline in Black or African American employees in the district since the 2020–2021 school year is, to be frank, unacceptable. This should be a five-alarm fire, worthy of all efforts by the Administration to slow this decline, though it certainly would not be the first fire in the district.
