PA Needs Teachers Releases New Publication on Strategic Staffing for Educators

Harrisburg, PA — Today, PA Needs Teachers released Reimagining Teaching: How Strategic Staffing Can Empower Teachers & Accelerate Learning in PA, their new report on strategic staffing. This report synthesizes national and international data and models and findings, themes, and participant input from the fourth-annual PA Needs Teachers summit, held in Harrisburg in November 2025.

The report was authored by the following Teach Plus Pennsylvania Policy Fellows:

  • Christopher Brown, Tredyffrin/Easttown School District

  • Danielle Greene, Cocalico School District

  • Stephanie Holmberg, South Western School District

  • Avery Hower, Jim Thorpe Area School District

  • Chelsea McGovern, West Chester Area School District

  • Christine Persun, Senior Fellow, Mechanicsburg Area School District

  • Aimee Seitz-Geedey, Mifflin County School District

  • Trey Smith, The School District of Philadelphia

  • Ciminy St. Clair, Senior Fellow, Norwin School District

  • Jill Weller-Reilly, Senior Fellow, Central Bucks School District

“Over the past three years of our coalition’s existence, we’ve made real progress in reducing financial barriers to entering the teaching profession, most notably through the student teacher stipend program but also through teacher apprenticeship pathways and the Grow PA program,” said Laura Boyce, Executive Director of Teach Plus Pennsylvania and a leader with PA Needs Teachers. “However, we know teacher turnover remains high, and recruitment efforts alone can’t solve this teacher shortage crisis. We also have to address the reason so many teachers are leaving by reimagining the teaching role.”

Strategic staffing is an innovative approach to redesigning teacher roles to better retain both rookie and veteran teachers and improve instructional quality and student outcomes. Schools implementing strategic staffing models meet five key criteria:

  • Team-based staffing

  • Differentiated roles and compensation for educators

  • Time for collaboration and support within the school day

  • Flexibility in scheduling and staffing

  • Integrated preparation pathways

Research consistently shows that a well-prepared, stable, and diverse teacher workforce is associated with better student outcomes: improved academic results, higher lifetime earnings, better post-secondary outcomes, and other lifelong benefits. Higher rates of teacher retention are associated with better performing schools and conversely, schools with a lot of teacher turnover seem to have poorer student outcomes. They also over-rely on emergency permitted teachers and spend more money every year filling vacancies, re-recruiting teachers, and retraining them.

Several models across the country are demonstrating promise in improving teacher retention and satisfaction while simultaneously accelerating student learning. Those include Public Impact’s Opportunity Culture model and Arizona State University’s Next Education Workforce model. Pennsylvania is well-positioned to seed and scale similar models through local pilots and statewide policy incentives.

“Strategic staffing is about redesigning schools so great teachers can stay and grow in the profession, not burn out of it,” said Lenny Sweeney, National Center on Education and the Economy Pennsylvania State Director and a leader with PA Needs Teachers. “Across the country and around the world, we see that when schools create team-based roles, build in time for collaboration, and offer clear pathways for advancement, both teachers and students thrive. Pennsylvania has an opportunity to move from short-term fixes to long-term systems change that strengthens instruction, stabilizes the workforce, and improves outcomes for students.”

National research from the National Council on Teacher Quality shows that:

  • 63% of teachers want more time to collaborate

  • Over 80% are open to co-teaching or team-teaching arrangemen ts

  • Only 26% think the profession currently offers meaningful flexibility or growth opportunities. 

Communities across the commonwealth are struggling with severe teacher shortages, with 70% of Pennsylvania counties facing a “severe” or “very severe” shortage. In the past decade, the number of certified teachers produced by Pennsylvania’s education programs has fallen by 75%, and teacher turnover is at an all-time high. The state now issues more emergency certificates – granted to underprepared teachers when schools cannot find qualified teachers – than regular teaching certificates to fully-qualified teachers.

PA Needs Teachers, a statewide coalition led by Teach Plus and the National Center on Education and the Economy (NCEE), has led efforts to alleviate the teacher shortage crisis. For the past four years, they have held an annual summit that brings together educators, experts, and advocates to explore the root causes of the shortage and possible solutions. 

The coalition has released multiple reports detailing their findings and has also developed tools to track the severity of teacher shortages by county and state senate districts. 

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About PA Needs Teachers: Founded in 2022, PA Needs Teachers is a coalition of over 50 organizations -- including school districts, universities, non-profits, statewide associations, and business organizations -- working to address Pennsylvania's teacher shortage crisis by addressing root causes and implementing policy strategies to inspire systems-level change.For more information, www.paneedsteachers.com.

Teach Plus: The mission of Teach Plus is to empower excellent, experienced, and diverse teachers to take leadership over key policy and practice issues that affect their students’ success. Since 2009, Teach Plus has developed thousands of teacher leaders across the country to exercise their leadership in shaping education policy and improving teaching and learning, to create an education system driven by access and excellence for all. For more information, www.teachplus.org.

NCEE: Since 1988, The National Center on Education and the Economy (NCEE) has been researching the world’s best-performing education systems to give states and districts the tools they need to become world class. NCEE has been a leader in U.S. education from policy to practice, producing reports that have led to landmark national legislation, supporting states in redesigning their education systems, and providing rigorous, proven support to more education leaders than any other organization. NCEE’s dedicated, diverse, and experienced staff are working with teachers, school leaders, district leadership teams, and state policymakers to create the highest-performing, most equitable systems of education in the world. For more information, visit www.ncee.org.