The exit reason is usually pay. The real reason is something you could have heard in time to act.
It is a Tuesday in late March, a week after contract letters went out. Your fifth grade teacher asks if she can close your door.
She has taught here eleven years. Parents request her by name. She tells you another school has offered her more, and she says it to the carpet instead of to you. Her husband’s hours were cut in February. They have run the numbers every way they can.
“I love it here,” she says. “I just can’t make it work.”
This is the first you have heard about her husband’s hours. And no one has ever asked her what she would give up to stay.
This is how many good teachers leave a Christian school: with regret, a spreadsheet, and a reason you cannot argue with. It is true, and it is not the whole reason.
You probably cannot fix the pay. Here is what you can do before it comes up.
Why teachers leave Christian schools
Pay is real, and the federal data shows it. In 2021–22, 36 percent of private school teachers who changed schools by choice named salary and benefits as their most important reason, against 9 percent of public school teachers (National Center for Education Statistics). Private school teachers also leave the profession at a higher rate, 12 percent that year against 8 percent in public schools. But that's probably not a surprise to you.
Most Christian schools cannot match what a public district pays, so yours is probably not the strongest offer a good teacher will receive. You may aspire to pay more competitively someday. Until then, pay is the floor, not where you win.
Then there is what the exit conversation hides. In the schools I coach that have healthy cultures, the teacher who leaves over pay has usually loved the work. Something in her life shifted: a spouse’s hours, a new baby, a loan, a parent who needs care. The math stopped working. The reason she gives you is true, and it is also the last domino.
What you control before the money moment
The research points to the same place. A Learning Policy Institute analysis of 2012–13 federal survey data on public school teachers found that poor support from administrators predicted teachers leaving more strongly than any other workplace issue it measured, including colleague support and student behavior. An earlier NCES study of private school teachers found that leavers reported weak administrative support alongside discipline problems and low pay. Support is the part of the job you control. A teacher who is known and given what she values is weighing more than a salary. Some will take less money to keep work they could not replace elsewhere.
People are motivated by a handful of things: specific recognition, time with senior leaders, a say before decisions are made, more responsibility, room to run their own work, training and growth, and tangible extras. (This list is inspired by the work of Tim Harvest and Steve Stroope.)
Three principles make it practical.
Find out what each teacher values. Most people care a lot about a few things and little about the rest. Across the staffs I have surveyed, people on the same team rarely want the same mix of motivators. You cannot guess which few, so ask.
Give her what she told you. If she values autonomy, give her autonomy. If she values a say, bring her in before the decision is made. If she values recognition, name the exact thing you saw her do. If your spouse says they like flowers, you bring flowers. You do not guess, and you do not hand her the thing you would want.
Do not hand out what she did not ask for. Extra responsibility energizes the teacher who asks for it. To the teacher who did not, it says the reward for good work is more work, and she starts looking. A public thank-you can do the same to someone who would rather hear it privately. In my survey data, about three in four people named room to run their own work. Fewer than one in three named more responsibility.
How to keep good staff? Learn about it early
A teacher whose life is changing seldom tells the person who signs her contract. She tells the person who asks.
Twice a year, sit down with each teacher for fifteen minutes and ask three things: what she values most about working here, what is frustrating her that she thinks wouldn't be at another school, and what has changed for her since last year. Then be quiet. The second and third answers are where the valuable conversation starts, while you still have months to act.
What you do with the answer is limited to what you control: her hours, a summer role, a schedule that leaves room for a second income, tuition benefits for her own children if your school offers them. Promise nothing you cannot deliver.
When she goes anyway
Some losses are unavoidable. A school that tried to keep everyone against a change in life it cannot pay for would not last. Let her leave well. Thank her for specific things, ask her to stay in touch, and tell her the door is open. How she leaves is also what your remaining staff are watching.
This week
Schedule fifteen minutes with the teacher you would least want to lose. Ask what she values here, what frustrates her, and what has changed for her since last year. Write down her answers.
You may not be able to match another school’s number. You can learn what she values, and what changed for her, in the first half of the school year instead of the second.
