The State Board's strategic planning committee devoted significant discussion on July 22 to teacher retention and the transition from permits to full licensure, flagging the issue as both a workforce and master-plan concern.
Brianna Summers told members that "less than half of educators teaching on a permit obtained a full and valid license within 3 years," a result the staff said sits nearly 20 percentage points below the committee's prior 65% goal. Committee members asked for more detail on why permit holders do not transition to full licensure and whether the limited-license pathway — recently introduced — will change outcomes.
Erica Light noted that the limited license "is a new pathway for educators to go from a permit to a full license. And during the time period that was covered by this data, there hadn't really been enough time yet for people to use that pathway." Members asked staff to obtain updated Department of Education data in November and to consider how survey instruments (for example, the educator survey) might capture permit status and obstacles to licensure.
Members and staff discussed several potential levers: mandatory mentoring, targeted leadership and school-culture improvements, differentiated compensation plans that reward collaborative school-level gains, and the need to study district-level implementation. Nathan James, deputy executive director for legislative and external affairs, said recent legislation on merit pay "largely mirrored what's already on the books" but that statewide study and local innovation on differentiated compensation could be useful. Committee members and staff agreed more study is needed before adopting numeric changes to the master plan goals.
Ally Reid and staff committed to pulling existing reports and to circulating updated figures and relevant survey data to the committee ahead of its fall meetings.