There is one word you won’t hear us use anymore in professional settings: novice. We have each worked in a range of roles in the fields of preK–12 practice and teacher and administrator preparation across several states. A disappointingly common theme we have witnessed is the enduring deficit mindset used by teachers, building administrators, district leaders, and university faculty when discussing early-career teachers. This deficit orientation is predominantly—if not exclusively—about the knowledge, skills, and experience these educators lack. We challenge such negative perceptions.
Given the persistent challenge of teacher turnover, especially among new educators, early and intentional investment in new teachers as leaders can be a solution to retaining teachers and improving schools. Through a school turnaround research-practice partnership we both participated in, we witnessed great success in the retention and development of early-career teachers when they were provided with support coupled with opportunities to take a leadership role. Over the course of three years in the California middle school we partnered with, teacher retention—especially for new teachers—increased from a historic trend of approximately 50 percent to approximately 85 percent of teachers remaining at the school each year. Additionally, student academic outcomes significantly increased, and student and staff culture improved, as indicated by climate surveys (Henry & Swinney, 2023).
Building administrators introduced a variety of efforts to achieve these results, but the keystone to their strategy was an explicit investment in harnessing the teacher leadership capacity of early-career teachers. Administrators expanded teacher leadership roles so that approximately half were held by educators within their first three years of teaching. Additionally, administrators saw building the teacher leadership capacity of new teachers as an opportunity to invest in their goal of a more equitable school community.
Four Ways to Invest in New Teachers
While working with the middle school, we observed four key tenets that can support school communities in embracing early-career teachers, harnessing their leadership potential, and encouraging their development as professionals.
1. Ensure mentorship goes both ways.
All new professionals benefit from support as they enter their fields, and for new teachers, this is often through formal and informal mentoring models. These programs can be valuable to new teachers, but they are not often structured to be reciprocal. The static mentor-mentee dynamic often fosters a binary, positioning early-career teachers as empty vessels waiting to be filled by a mentor’s knowledge. In addition, these relationships often see the mentor jumping into solving problems for mentees, or offering a single solution, which builds dependency.
Mentorships can be restructured to encourage collaboration that places both educators in a learning stance.
Mentorships can be restructured to encourage collaboration that places both educators in a learning stance and that prompts mentees to elicit their own goals and action steps. This helps build early-career teachers’ agency and encourages shared, reflective learning between new and veteran staff. Fostering this collegial dynamic helps new teachers see themselves as part of the professional community within their school and can help reframe dynamics where staff automatically look to veteran teachers and official leaders (such as the principal and instructional coach) for instructional innovation or to solve a problem of practice. We saw this reciprocal relationship in action in the middle school we worked with when a group of new teachers helped their mentors embed instructional technology to support the development of digital portfolios, streamlining the process for teacher feedback and student reflection.
2. Reward experimentation.
When formal and informal leaders within a school promote risk taking and experimentation, innovation can thrive. Often, this requires a culture shift and a focus on reimagining instruction that is more likely to meet the needs of all students, rather than resting on safe, familiar instructional practices that teach to the middle. Moving beyond long-established practices is often met with resistance from more experienced educators, but this is a situation where early-career teachers can shine. School leaders can position new teachers and the current perspectives they bring as assets within the school’s professional learning culture.
When we value early-career educators’ knowledge and skills, we begin to challenge unofficial hierarchies that favor the way things have always been done. But challenging these hierarchies requires strategic efforts. As students respond to new pedagogical approaches, especially those facilitated by early-career educators, these efforts should be publicly celebrated alongside the work of other educators in the building. This creates a culture that champions innovation and promotes the dissemination of successful practices by both veteran and early-career teachers. For example, when the school we worked with shifted to block periods, administrators observed newer staff strategically pacing their lesson plans to meaningfully chunk instruction and enhance engagement through academic discourse routines. Intentionally highlighting the redistribution of instructional time during subsequent staff meetings honored the experimentation of these early-career educators and promoted a promising practice for the benefit of all staff and students.
3. Highlight the impact and progress new teachers are making.
As they establish and refine their unique approach to teaching, new educators are often focused on their day-to-day work and may benefit from others pointing out how and in what areas they are making progress. Leaders—including administrators and mentors—can nurture a new teacher’s sense of efficacy, an essential factor for sticking with the profession, by highlighting incremental shifts in practice that reflect their growth in pedagogical and professional skill sets.
Teaching in today’s schools requires a holistic approach to support students and their learning, and new teachers’ enhanced student connections and engagement should be celebrated alongside improved academic outcomes. One new teacher we worked with, for instance, was engaging a student that no other teacher in the school seemed able to reach—the student only participated in this teacher’s class. The teacher didn’t realize this until an administrator pointed it out during an observation debrief. The educator’s efforts to build rapport through informal check-ins and supported share-outs became a road map for more veteran team members to achieve similar gains with this student.
4. Save a seat at the table.
When teachers know that their voices are heard, they feel valued within their organization. This is especially true when teachers see their input influencing a school’s direction, including instructional innovation, policy development, and family engagement (Henry, VanGronigen, & Wronowski, 2024; Wronowski et al., 2024). Encouraging new teachers to contribute to efforts informing school priorities early in their careers can help demystify the complex nature of school leadership and build their knowledge of school operations. Too many teachers, early-career and veteran alike, view the school-level decision-making process as a black box. This can be remedied by enhancing collaboration and transparency among stakeholders so that early-career teachers, especially, feel part of a democratic decision-making process.
Embrace the notion that everyone has something to contribute.
A practical first step to fostering a more democratic culture is for school leaders to embrace the notion that everyone has something to contribute. Part of the work of the principal and other leaders is first understanding the unique talents and knowledge their colleagues contribute to classrooms and the school community. Then they need to foster opportunities for new staff to share ideas and skills. These team members can provide a fresh perspective on school operations when there is a safe space to interrogate ingrained practices (such as discipline or grading). Simply put, seeking a colleague’s input and aligning opportunities for them to contribute their expertise can go a long way in helping that individual see themselves as part of an organization.
Furthering an Equity Plan
Finally, we believe that attention to furthering an equity agenda extends across these four tenets. Intentional investment in the leadership potential of early-career teachers should be a cornerstone of schools’ equity action plans. Specifically, early-career educators should not be overlooked for their ability to help shed new light on systemic challenges within schools and help inform action planning. In our work with many schools, including this research-practice partnership, we’ve noted that teachers entering the field were more likely than veteran staff to reflect the demographic, language, and cultural identities of their students. These same early-career educators were also more likely to be trained in updated instructional approaches, including culturally sustaining practices. Therefore, the perspectives, knowledge, and skills offered by new teachers were integral to equity-focused improvement efforts.
Investing in New Talent
For too long, the notion of the “novice teacher” has perpetuated a deficit approach when developing onboarding and mentoring frameworks for early-career educators. Formal teacher leadership opportunities and structures vary from school to school, but all schools have educators who are knowledgeable about their practice and willing to engage with colleagues. Early-career teachers have a wealth of knowledge, skills, and experiences that contribute to school improvement. Investment in these professionals and their leadership potential helps new teachers develop as reflective and receptive educators, eager to sustain continuous improvement efforts over the course of their careers.
Reflect & Discuss
➛ What leadership opportunities do new teachers have at your school?
➛ If there are not many of these opportunities available, can you think of other ways to empower these teachers?
➛ Can you make time this week to informally check in with a new teacher in your building? What will you say?
