‘You Can Lead Now’: Inside the NEA’s Plan to Engage New Teachers

In an aging teacher workforce, it’s increasingly urgent for schools and unions to engage the newest educators in the community. That’s the consensus of the nation’s largest teachers’ union, which is working to stem membership declines amid years of anti-union legislation and litigation.

At the National Education Association’s annual representative assembly here Friday, delegates voted to create both a working group and national conference for teachers in their first seven years in the classroom—"pre-tenure” in many districts. The initiatives are a way to both retain teachers and boost the union’s ranks.

“People look at us and say, [early-career teachers] haven’t been here for 25 years. They weren’t a pandemic teacher. They haven’t been in the fight and don’t know what it’s like,” said Em DePriest, now in her third year of teaching reading at Piper High School in McLouth, Kan., who proposed the group. “And sure, that might all be accurate, but we are in it now. That fight is going to continue with or without us, so we have to be able to put our fists up against it.”

DePriest and others in the group’s caucus for early-career teachers have been pushing for the working group for a decade. The new group, which will include at least five teachers who have been in the classroom five years or less, will be tasked with designing professional development for teachers for their first seven years, as well as bringing together new teachers for a national conference similar to the NEA’s Aspiring Educator Conference, which meets before the representative assembly. There’s no timeline or details yet on either the training or meeting.

NEA estimates about 30-35% of union members are now in their first seven years of teaching. That’s roughly similar to the most recent federal estimate, from 2020-21, that about 36% of teachers had less than 10 years’ experience. (Those teaching 10 years or less made up more than 42% of the teaching force in 2010-11.)

NEA membership dropped by 10,000 in the last decade among student-teachers—what the union calls “aspiring educators"—from 52,000 in 2013-14 to 42,000 in 2023-24. During the same period, membership of retired educators rose by 18,000.

Both factors have contributed to the loss of roughly 75,000 certified staff members from the union in that decade. (The overall number of K-12 public school teachers grew by more than 400,000 from 2015 to 2021).

Reducing teacher turnover through more and better PD

The working group’s goal is to increase teacher retention among young professionals by tailoring professional development and building community to that group. Early-career teachers under age 30 were more likely than any other groups to leave their school or the teaching profession, federal data show.

Kasandra Medina Torres, who starts teaching 1st grade full time in Washoe County, Nev., schools this fall after student-teaching, said more professional development in areas like classroom management and differentiating instruction could reduce young teachers’ stress.

“One of the main reasons why ... early educators end up leaving [is] because what they learn doesn’t match what’s happening in the classroom,” Medina Torres said. “We learn so many strategies, ... but once you’re in the classroom and you have 25, 30, or even more students, and you’re just on your own, it’s so difficult to know how to manage it.”

But student-teachers and early-career educators often have less time to participate in professional development or activities outside of normal school hours because many take on additional jobs.

“I’ve worked at Amazon, I’ve worked at a couple different warehouses, DoorDash, Uber Eats, all of those things while student-teaching and doing my practicums just to try to have some sort of income,” said Demitrius Dove, who graduated this spring from Clark Atlanta University and starts as a 3rd grade teacher in Atlanta this fall.

Dove, like many, was unpaid as a student-teacher.

“What would be helpful is just getting the people in professional groups to give the younger people a chance—to give them the permission to say, you don’t have to wait to lead, you can lead now—and giving us the tools that would help us to lead in better and effective ways,” Dove said.