Cedar Rapids schools’ new human resources rep working on staff retention, recruitment

CEDAR RAPIDS — Tammy Wawro, the retention and recruitment strategist for Cedar Rapids schools, is working to “energize staff” as part of a three-year strategic plan approved by the school board in September.

Wawro, who started her role in August, is gathering data through an optional exit survey on why teachers and other staff like paraeducators, nutrition service workers, custodians and bus drivers chose to leave the district. The human resources department also is surveying new staff 45 and 90 days after they’ve begun to gather information on how they’re settling in and what additional supports they may need.

“We’re asking hard questions and hoping people are honest,” Wawro said of the exit survey. “They can make it anonymous if they prefer, but we’re also hoping they tell us who they are and let us reach out to them and talk to them a little more.”

Wawro said the exit survey asks staff to rank their reasons for leaving and if they’re leaving the education profession entirely or leaving for another school district.

“We’re asking if they felt they were treated with equity and fairness,” she said.

An initial survey of newly hired staff — which 80 out of 118 people responded to — shows they feel supported by their colleagues in their first 45 days, Wawro said.

That’s “heartwarming” and “what I think we should hold onto,” Wawro said. “If they feel like they have a home with the people they work with and their colleagues are supporting them, that’s huge.”

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The Cedar Rapids Community School District has more than 3,000 employees. More than half all staff — including teachers — have less than five years of experience within the district, Darius Ballard, chief of human resources, told The Gazette in October.

Improving retention is one of the key pillars of the Cedar Rapids district’s strategic plan. Another vital component is ensuring staff is diverse and culturally competent.

Wawro said it’s important that students in the district — about 45 percent of whom are students of color — see themselves represented in their teachers.

“Our teacher population should match our student population. That ought to be the goal, and we’re nowhere near there,” Wawro said.

“I’m not saying we don’t have amazing teachers, but it sure would be nice in a building that serves 60 percent students of color that you have more than one teacher of color. It’s role models.”

Wawro has a few ideas for how to attract more teachers of color to the district.

One is to engage with Historically Black Colleges and Universities and attract student teachers to the district from those schools. Wawro said it will be important to get these student teachers plugged into the community so they will want to come back.

“People build relationships for a lifetime,” Wawro said.

Another way to increase the diversity of educators in the district — and build a future generation of teachers — is by encouraging students with an interest in teaching.

“I want our teachers to start sharing with their own students that they would be a great teacher someday, plant the seed early on that this is a profession you want to go into,” Wawro said. “Our students are where we need to capture the next generation of teachers.”

Wawro said the district can further this effort by giving students opportunities to explore the teaching profession while they’re still in school.

A career in education

Wawro was inspired to be a teacher by her own teachers beginning as a student at Cleveland Elementary School in Cedar Rapids.

When Wawro’s mother died when she was a young girl, it was her female teachers she turned to as role models.

“The people that impacted my life — besides my brothers and my dad — were my teachers. I couldn’t wait to go to school and see what my female teachers were wearing. That’s where I went to learn about anything that wasn’t sports, where I learned that I could dive into a book.”

Wawro taught her entire profession in Cedar Rapids, starting as a fifth-grade teacher at Hiawatha Elementary School for about 10 years. She has 30 years of education experience in the district, she said.

From there, she helped launch the district’s mentoring and induction program for new teachers. The district now uses a program through Grant Wood Area Education Agency, which serves Eastern Iowa educators and students in a seven-county region.

Wawro served as president of the Cedar Rapids Education Association — the local teacher’s union — from 2006 to 2012. She was elected two times as president of the Iowa State Education Association between 2012 and 2018, during which time she lived part-time in Des Moines.

“I really wanted to elevate the profession. … It was very important to me that we were student-centered,” she said.

For the last six years, Wawro taught language arts and accelerated learning at Wilson Middle School in Cedar Rapids. In her current role as retention and recruitment strategist, Wawro wants to help district teachers better understand the salary schedule.

“You don’t have to leave the classroom to have an amazing career and a house and a car. You can stay in our salary schedule and make what a principal makes while being a teacher. We want people who want to be with kids to stay with kids,” Wawro said.

“You shouldn’t have to leave the classroom because you can’t afford to stay in it. Cedar Rapids has a brilliant salary schedule if people can understand it,” she said.

Comments: (319) 398-8411; grace.king@thegazette.com