More Cedar Rapids school staff listing ‘personal reasons’ in exit survey

CEDAR RAPIDS — One-third of staff in the Cedar Rapids Community School District have less than four years of experience, and school leaders are pushing harder to find out why.

Darius Ballard, chief of human resources for the Cedar Rapids district, said a growing number of people are listing “personal reasons” for why they are leaving their roles in the district in an exit survey.

“We’re going to strive really hard in human resources to push a little harder this year, so we can find out more why those personal reasons are personal reasons,” Ballard said in a presentation to the Cedar Rapids school board Monday.

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Engagement surveys given to new teachers and “milestone” teachers who have been with the district for five, 10, 15, and 20 years or more, highlighted two areas of concern for staff: student behavior and input in decision-making at the building and district level, Ballard said.

Ballard said one way the district is addressing student behavior is through a $3.5 million investment that adds dozens of staff positions at the elementary, middle and high school levels in an effort to improve learning outcomes and reduce office referrals, suspensions, fighting and even juvenile court appearances.

Ballard hopes a multiyear strategic communication plan — presented to the school board last month — can address staff concerns and “empower” them to have a voice in decision-making.

“It is important to remember the bigger picture here that if we want our staff to stay, if we want staff to find the district a desirable place to work, it’s more than just an (human resources) responsibility,” school board President Cindy Garlock said.

Investing in student behavior and facilities “matter for attracting staff to the district,” Garlock said.

“My charge is for all of us to keep putting mechanisms in place, keep putting initiatives in place that make Cedar Rapids a place everyone wants to be, students and staff alike,” Garlock said.

One recruitment and retention effort is a new pathway aimed at developing and recruiting students and paraprofessionals to become certified teachers, and teachers to consider leadership opportunities within the district, Ballard said. The program is called STARS and stands for Student, Teacher, Admin Retention and Succession Initiative.

“There’s three things we look for in a highly engaged staff: What are they saying, are they staying, and are they striving for the next step on their path,” Ballard said.

Ballard said about 100 students — the majority of them at Kennedy High School — have engaged in career learning in the last two years, taking either Early Childhood Development or School Age Child Development before participating in an internship where they get hands-on experience in teaching and education.

Another recruitment effort — in part aimed at diversifying teaching candidates — is visiting colleges and universities “that represent demographics closer to our student body” and inviting them to apply for student teacher opportunities.

There is a higher percentage of staff than students in the district who are white. Eighty-five percent of staff and 55 percent of students are white, 6 percent of staff and 22 percent of students are Black, 1 percent of staff and 9 percent of students are Hispanic, 2 percent of staff and 11 percent of students are multiracial.

Ballard said the district is working on building a roster of host families, so student teachers from outside of Cedar Rapids have a place to live if they need it. This also creates a connection to the community.

“We have the highest student teacher placement number that we’ve had in the last five years this year because we know when we have student teachers, they tend to stick around when there’s an opportunity for them. I am a former student teacher myself,” Ballard said.

Ballard also highlighted the ways educators in the district can grow their salary more rapidly by taking professional development courses.

“I have been requesting this information for eight years since I’ve been on the board,” school board member Jennifer Borcherding said of Ballard’s presentation. “I appreciate the effort that’s been put into this.”

Why are staff leaving the district?

Nine percent of exiting employees responded that personal reasons were why they were departing the district in the 2022-23 school year. That jumped to 39 percent in the 2023-24 school year and 36 percent last school year.

The number of people who left the district for retirement in the 2022-23 and 2024-25 school years was 18 percent and in the 2023-24 school year was 14 percent.

Last year, 6 percent left for health reasons, 12 percent left for a career change and 9 percent left for another job in education.

There are 933 new employees to the district this year, or 35 percent of the district’s 2,684 staff members.

Ballard said over the last two years the human resources department has been implementing “just in time interventions,” meeting with people looking to leave the district, especially in the middle of a school year.

“Last year, we did 30 just in time interventions with employees who said they planned on resigning or who had resigned. We had an opportunity to get them to reconsider and 28 of the 30 did, and they’re still with us. When you think about that number, that’s roughly the equivalent of an elementary school’s worth of staff members,” Ballard said.

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