Teacher Recruitment & Retention With Intention
The landscape of education is changing — from AI integration to the rise of alternative educational delivery models such as online schools and microschools. During his presidential address at the 2024 SAIS Annual Conference, Dr. Brett Jacobsen shared the 10 shifts he has observed in education, including a skills shift, moving from a focus on lifelong learning to lifelong earning.
This skills shift has pushed schools to consider how to best meet the needs of their constituencies, resulting in the Portrait of a Graduate (PoG) adopted by many. Ravenscroft in Raleigh, NC, has pushed the envelope of what a Portrait of a Graduate looks like for their 1,250 students in preK through grade 12, choosing to take it a step further with the crafting of a Portrait of an Educator for their faculty — an aspirational outline of the traits and attributes Ravenscroft faculty should display.
Crafting a Portrait of an Educator
In 2022, under the leadership of former Head of School Doreen Kelly, Ravenscroft began development of its Portrait of a Graduate, in collaboration with ISM, as a means to engage teaching faculty and staff with shaping Ravenscroft’s ideals for aspirational characteristics for graduates. It was important to school leadership for faculty and staff to play a key role in developing the PoG since these educators are in the classroom delivering instruction daily. This inclusion gave faculty and staff a sense of ownership, commitment to the ideals, and a sense of obligation to play a role in cultivating these traits within students.
For the development of the Portrait of a Graduate, ISM consultants led all Ravenscroft employees through an exercise during the opening school workdays, synthesizing initial responses for the school’s academic committee. After the characteristics of the PoG had been finalized, the marketing and communications team created a marketing plan with a web presence, email communications, magazine articles, and social media campaigns to showcase the results as a demonstration of the “product of a Ravenscroft education,” which is an extension of the school’s pioneering Lead From Here youth leadership development program.
At the start of the 2024 academic, former Associate Head of School Justin Brandon collaborated with the teaching faculty for development of the Portrait of an Educator. Building upon the previous work developing the Portrait of a Graduate and leveraging additional resources from ISM, faculty shared their insights into what it means to be a Ravenscroft educator. Subsequently, a task force synthesized the responses and created the final framework.
Ravenscroft Portrait of an Educator: I teach with joy and strive for excellence.I model lifelong learning and collaboration.I encourage students to explore their passions and interests.I create a nurturing and inclusive community where all are valued.
Ravenscroft Portrait of an Educator:
I teach with joy and strive for excellence.I model lifelong learning and collaboration.I encourage students to explore their passions and interests.I create a nurturing and inclusive community where all are valued.
Of the resulting Portrait of an Educator, Ravenscroft Upper School English Teacher Joel Karpowitz says, “Shared purpose and high standards have long been a hallmark of the Ravenscroft community, but the Portrait of an Educator defines those ideas in clear, direct, and meaningful language to help us avoid getting lost in the regular challenges or administrative weeds and instead align our day-to-day work with our vision for what excellent teaching really looks and feels like.”
Karpowitz describes the final portrait as both student-centered — such as nurturing and encouraging students’ interests — as well as educator-focused, through the cultivation of one’s own learning and curiosity. “The fact that these ideals begin with joy and end with inclusivity sends an important message to our whole community — a message that, if we lean into it, can positively shape the school we are and the school we will be in 10 years, 20 years, or further into the future,” he says.
Mission-Alignment With Recruitment & Retention
Of the Portrait of an Educator design process, Ravenscroft Director of Library Services Angela Finn said she saw many connections between the work and the earlier development of the school’s Portrait of a Graduate. “Both exercises provided opportunities for us to be self-aware and highly empathetic. We explored faculty expectations and qualities in relation to our students’ ability to succeed: How do we nurture authentic connections that model this [vision], in the context of our Portrait of a Graduate?”
The Portrait of an Educator is instrumental to Ravenscroft in how the school thinks about faculty growth. It also serves as a tool in both recruiting and evaluating possible new hires and provides concrete elements to evaluate potential job candidates to ensure mission alignment.
Head of School Derrick Willard shares the Portrait of an Educator continues to have an impact in their community in many ways: “With prospective families and prospective employees, both the Portrait of a Graduate and Portrait of an Educator highlight the characteristics and skills we believe our students and teachers should have. PoG and PoE help shape and inform teaching, learning, and measuring performance for faculty and staff. It is a way to develop and align curriculum and lessons — and track performance — ensuring students and educators are developing these characteristics and skills throughout the educational experience.”
Ideas Into Action
Ravenscroft shares their advice for developing a Portrait of an Educator and poses the questions should schools ask of themselves before implementation.
