Recruitment and retention in human capital: a human capital evaluation for sustainable teacher recruitment and retention practices in rural schools through an insider-researcher approach

Teacher recruitment and retention are complex issues that have taken the main stage in the focus and attention of not only school leaders and teachers, but state governments and elected officials are now actively involved in seeking ways to solve the problems associated with teacher shortages. Garcia and Weiss (2019) reported that the teacher shortage is real, large, and growing and continues to get worse with each passing school year. When indicators such as teacher quality, salaries, training, and professional development activities are considered, the shortage is actually worse than what reports and other research currently show. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the perceptions of educators including district and campus-level administrators, central office personnel, and teachers on recruiting and retentions strategies that effective schools implement to locate, hire, and teachers. It is the hope of the researcher to identify successful strategies that schools use to bolster recruiting programs as well as retention plans that help keep teachers on campus and in the profession as a life-long career. A review of the literature regarding teacher recruitment and retention on national, state, and local scales provided the researcher with a context for the study. The review was furthered by the analysis of current perceptions of school personnel regarding recruitment and retention strategies and what effective schools implement to counteract the growing trend with teacher shortages. Participants were recruited by the researcher through phone calls and emails to superintendents whose districts were targeted for involvement in the study. Questionnaires were sent to administrators and teachers through email and the data was collected including follow-up interviews hosted through Zoom. The results indicated that teachers and administrators thoroughly understand the teacher shortage crisis and their places within it and have specific attitudes, feelings, and offerings on what steps school districts and state governments can take to combat the problem.