The working conditions beginning teachers experience when they start determines whether they stay.

The first years of teaching are the most fragile and the most formative. The research is clear: teacher attrition is closely tied to poor working conditions, such as lack of access to mentoring, leadership support, collaborative planning time, and feedback loops. The result? Studies show that 44% of new teachers leave the profession within five years. And when early-career teachers leave year after year, the disruption is instructional, relational, and financial. Constant turmoil for students, an unstable workforce, and a drain on resources. But when we say “stay,” we don’t just mean staying on the job, we mean helping new teachers stay connected to to purpose, community, and growth.

Teacher turnover is a design flaw — and we’re taking it on from day one. Supporting new teachers is the first, most urgent step in designing for workforce sustainability.

We focus on designing environments where teachers feel effective and connected with attention to the quality of adult learning, leadership, alignment, and support structures. Our work doesn’t just reduce churn; we increase instructional stability, deepen relational continuity for students, and free up capacity to improve teaching and learning at scale.

Retention is about creating environments where teachers want to stay long-term, where their expertise is valued, their voice is heard, and their growth is ongoing. The same conditions — trust, feedback, collaboration, and aligned instructional support — are also what keep mid- and later-career teachers engaged and invested. We believe strong “stay systems” start with a focus on entry points and expand from there to build a strong, experienced, and continually developing workforce. That’s why we design mentoring structures, instructional leadership opportunities, and professional learning communities that evolve as teachers do.

Growth is a continuous, community-driven practice.

By definition growth is ongoing and dynamic. Support can’t just drop off after those first years on the job. Strong starts need to be followed by continued investment in teacher development. Access to instructional coaching, thoughtful professional learning designed for impact, opportunities for teachers to collaborate, and supportive and engaged leadership all factor into teacher job satisfaction and commitment to stay.

We recognize that early growth fuels long-term commitment and success. A big focus for beginning educators is on developing their pedagogy to translate content knowledge into accessible, meaningful learning for students.

Growth is also about honing an ability to make professional judgments in complex, real-time situations. That requires practice-based learning, cycles of observation and reflection, and space to explore problems of practice. When new and experienced teachers have access to these kinds of growth opportunities early and often, they build confidence, competence, and resiliency — key predictors of retention and long-term success. We believe “growth-based” design must be embedded into the everyday work of being an educator.

Our professional learning programs create the conditions for continuous improvement where feedback is timely, learning is collaborative, and growth is observable at every stage of an educator’s career.

Strong leadership has a multiplier effect — to elevate what matters and sustain what works.

Effective leadership is a distributed, learnable practice that shapes the culture and climate of schools. And it’s important to recognize that everyone in the school community has a leadership role — whether they are facilitating student learning, mentoring a colleague, leading a PLC, or providing instructional leadership.

Every educator has the capacity to lead; we help unlock that leadership potential early and often.

Early-career educators need to see teacher leaders in action, modeling roles they can grow into. That means making mentoring, team leadership, and instructional collaboration accessible from the start and highlighting that these roles are critical to the success of the school community.

Without intentional structures and defined roles and responsibilities, leaders serving in informal roles can be stretched too thin and underappreciated. We help schools and systems distribute leadership strategically, building capacity through formal roles (like coaches, mentors, and PLC leads) and sustained coaching support for principals and district leaders.

By aligning with instructional priorities and grounding it in adult learning and development, we ensure that early-career support is a catalyst for growing leadership from within for everyone. The outcome? Leadership systems where each person sees clear, supported pathways to lead, in and out of the classroom.