Novice Jewish studies teacher attrition in modern Orthodox Jewish day schools

Abstract

The shortage of qualified teachers has long been recognized as a significant concern faced by public and private schools in the United States and the rate at which early-career teachers leave the profession has materially exacerbated the problem. Numerous government and privately sponsored programs and initiatives have taken aim at ameliorating the elevated attrition rates of novice teachers however little, if any, progress has been made and current studies indicate that the exit frequency of new teachers leaving the profession in addition to the overall dearth of educators, will continue (García & Weiss, 2019). Within the private school sector, which includes parochial educational institutions, the retention challenge is at least as troubling, and Jewish day schools are no exception (Ben-Avie & Kress, 2008; Menachem, 2017). Various studies have examined what motivates novice public and private school teachers to depart the profession though very little attention, if any, has ever been focused on why novice Jewish studies teachers in Modern Orthodox Jewish day schools leave. The goal of this study, which employed a qualitative, phenomenological approach, was to shed light on the reasons why novice Jewish studies teachers leave the profession and to determine whether compensation and/or life cycle events were major influencers in the former teachers’ decision making. Thirteen novice Jewish studies teachers who recently left the teaching profession after having taught in

New York metropolitan area Modern Orthodox day schools were interviewed extensively about their backgrounds and reasons for their departures. The three factors suggested most often by the interviewees for their leaving, in descending order of priority, were the paucity of senior administration support and feedback, followed by the excess stress and workloads they faced and finally, inadequate compensation. The hope is that the fresh insights provided will encourage Modern Orthodox day school stakeholders to pursue measures that will improve the rate of retention of their valued assets, novice teachers.