Dawn Casey-Rowe's Blog

I do not want a self-driving car.

The dealership gave me a big, maroon loaner car. It’s supposed to be a high-end SUV, but it’s really a beast.

“My mom would like this car,” I think. I turn on the 80’s on satellite radio because I can’t bluetooth to connect and finish the podcast I was listening to for work.

I already miss my little zippy little stick shift with the great speakers and no other frills.  This car  doesn’t zip. It sails. Not quite like my Dad’s Buicks and Old’s-people-mobiles…More like a cruise ship. I don’t want to sail. I want to zip.

As it happens, this is Rhode Island, the bad driving capital of the world. It’s the only state where the blinker is an optional package and moon roofs come standard so drivers can signal with the center finger, “left, right, straight, f-you” as God and Henry Ford intended.

Someone pulls out in front of me. I hit the breaks. I’m mentally prepared for this.  I remember not to downshift since this is an automatic. I don’t want to drop the engine in the middle of the road…

Unless… it’s the right size to fill the pothole?

It’s tough to drive an automatic. I noticed no one under 35 can park my stick shift. Several times I’ve valet parked it myself. I heard someone call manual transmissions “millennial anti-theft devices.” Still, I can’t remember how to drive an automatic when called upon to do so. I have to physically sit on my right hand to avoid shifting when I’m driving so I won’t blow the engine.

There…is…no….clutch….

Anyway, I see the car pull out in front of me. I slow down. It’s no big deal. It’s Rhode Island.  He left a three-centimeter cushion, about enough to avoid the middle-finger salute.

The Maroon Beast disagrees. “Obstacle ahead.” It flashes and jerks and flips off the other car.

Did the car really jerk? Or am I imagining the jerk because a jerk pulled in front of me? I keep sailing.

I see a another pothole. I drift right to avoid it.

Two green lines flash. There’s a picture of a little car. It lights up on the dash where the red flashing lights had been. The Maroon Beast pulls back to the left.

“Can’t be out of alignment.”  I look at the dash. The odometer says 1976. It’s brand new. “Loose steering.”

Next pothole, same thing. I realize what’s happening. The Maroon  Beast can see. It’s sentient. It knows! It’s a semi-self-driving vehicle taking away my freedom on the American roads. It’s part of a bot network that will unite and overthrow humans. Soon, my coffee pot will tell me when I’ve had enough, my microwave will inform on me, and my internet will turn off because it doesn’t like what I’ve written.

I test the swerve a few more times. Each time I drift right, the Maroon Beast whips me back into the center of the lane, pothole or not. Now, I’m annoyed. “I am in charge here….”

I drift, it swerves. Drift. Swerve. Drift. Swerve. Drift. Swerve. BANG! Pothole.

I want to show it who’s boss, regain control, take this car back from the Soviets. There is only one thing to do.

I wait for a straightaway. I drift left—a lot. I’m now straddling the double-yellow line. I stay there.

Nothing.

I do it again. Nothing.

The Maroon Beast doesn’t flash, buck, pull, swear, or course correct. I drive clear left of the line, out of my lane, into oncoming traffic.

Not the slightest reaction from The Maroon Beast. I must’ve won.

I return to my lane—just in time to see another pothole. I drift right to avoid it. The Beast jerks back in the lane. Clunk.

“So, let me get this straight? You’ll let me drive into oncoming traffic, hit a tractor trailer, and die, but you won’t let me avoid a pothole?”

I hear a chime. Must be one chime for yes, two chimes for no.

“Are you going to let me drive or what?” Two chimes.

Elon Musk says we’re about five years away from autonomous vehicles. He says the technology exists now, but that it’ll take some time until we can get into our cars and not intervene—to have a totally passive driving experience.

I wonder if he’ll test drive one of his autonomous vehicles in Rhode Island.

I don’t want a self-driving car.  If I have to have one because zippy little stick shifts go the way of the Model T and American muscle car, then it’d better crack open a beer for the road and say, “Good evening, ma’am, I hope you’ve had an excellent day.”

Or better yet, “I noticed you were low on groceries. I took the liberty of ordering them so you can sit back and relax.” Maybe the back seat will be a self-contained movie theatre or floatation chamber just in case the Maroon Beast decides there’s nowhere worthwhile to go and I don’t have to drive at all.

It’ll show the Lido Deck and some palm trees on the big screen, and then somewhere, somehow, the blockchain will bill me for a vacation I won’t even need to take.

But that’s another five years down the road.

For today, I hope my little zippy car will be ready so I can return The Maroon Beast and use my God-given senses and video game skills to avoid potholes on my own.

The post The Maroon Beast: Why The Self-Driving Car Won’t Work in Rhode Island appeared first on Café Casey.

“What IS this, Mom?”

“It’s a peanut butter sandwich,” I say. It shouldn’t be a surprise. He eats a peanut butter sandwich on store-bought white bread every…single…day.

I used to make the bread at night–it’s easy–and the sandwiches in the morning, but then he discovered commercial, square, tasteless stuff at school.

“It’s frozen!”

“Yes, I took it out of the freezer.” I make all the sandwiches at the beginning of the week, then I pull out the lunch components and toss them in the bag. It’s a seemless drop-kick to the school bus.

“I’m not eating THAT, it’s FROZEN!!!”

And so it begins. The morning meltdown.

This, my parent friends know, is a power struggle. I can’t lose. If I lose today, it’ll be twice as hard to win tomorrow.

But I don’t have time right now to see it out to its proper conclusion… the full-kid squash.

“Fine,” I say as I make a new sandwich with the last two pieces of room-temperature bread. “But you’re making your own lunch at night from now on.”

That seems like a consequence–there has to be a consequence to avoid the kid win.

I’ll conveniently forget about nighttime lunch making next week.

Because I have a bag of frozen sandwiches. Right next to the frozen pre-packed sandwich bags of Goldfish, Saltines, and Oreos he has been eating for weeks.

If I pack them ahead of time, they’re there. If I don’t, Friday lunch is toast crusts and stale graham crackers. Or an apple that comes back at the end of the day.

“Time to go.” He goes to find his hoodie and put on his shoes.

That’s when I swap the sandwiches.

I put the one I just made behind some clutter on the counter and put the freezer one back in the bag. He’ll never know the difference.

He thinks he’s won, but I know the truth.

And next week, I’ll toss a frozen sandwich in his bag every single day.

Because moms always win in the end.

The post The Curse of the Peanut Butter Sandwich appeared first on Café Casey.

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“Who’s up there?” The kid was halfway up the tree. It wasn’t a regular tree–it was a mammoth tree. An “if you fall you’ll be dead,” tree. A tree that went to God.

“Get down!”

That’s what they say to kids in the schoolyard tree. Too risky. Not allowed.  And every playground in the nation’s been retooled and regulated–all the “bad” stuff replaced with pillow-lined bars and fluff on the ground. No scraped knees. Safe!

But this kid…two and a half storeys up–nobody was yelling “Get down!” I inspected the tree from my spot by the fire. There were lots of branches to break his fall and three high-level nurses in the crowd. So… it’s okay?

Another kid jumped up. He didn’t climb that high, though.  A few branches up–not even close to death-level. Sprained ankle level at best.

Meanwhile, tree boy reached Tower of Babel-high. “Maybe he’s going to find God.”

“He loves to climb,” his mom said. She didn’t say “Get down!” either.

I should’ve sent him up further with my prayer.

He went a little bit higher. Then, he disappeared.

I looked to the top of the tree. No kid. Middle? No kid. No kid lying on the grass, and nobody screaming.

He was back on the earth, running around like kids do when parents are having adult time on the side.

 

Tree boy went up and down periodically. Because he was free. He could reach the sky.

And I wondered, “How high could I climb?”

 

But I never found out.

Because I didn’t try.

 

The post Halfway Up the Tree appeared first on Café Casey.

I was taking pictures of dandelions gone to seed when the boy cried, “Hey, Mom!”

“Over here!” I said. My moment of artistic inspiration…gone.

The boy pushed by me and started to rip up my puffy little subjects, oblivious to the fact I was kneeling on the ground actively shooting.

He picked each one, leaving me nothing, making them into a wish bouquet. Then, he blew.

Seeds scattered everywhere, into the wind. Wishes never come true unless someone take action. I was photographing a thousand potential wishes, anchored to a stem. He…set them free.

Pick, gather, blow, scatter…a thousand wishes ready for the world.

They’ll grow into entire fields of future wishes…

But only because one boy didn’t let me hold them hostage.

He set them free.

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Sunrise…

Tried to sleep in yesterday. I can’t, so I got up to write, as usual.

This view… I could stand at that window forever, for the rest of my life, and not a single detail would get old.

The magic of NYC to me is this: in a city of 9M people, I at once feel like a part of something bigger–a molecule that must be there–yet also completely alone, as if I could disappear forever, and no one would notice a thing.

Anyway, I was writing, and this happened. I caught that exact second where the sun taps me on the shoulder and says, “Hey, I’m back! You made it around one more time.” I usually miss it because my heart’s not in that space.

I’m grateful for the reminder of the simple beauty that sits in my path every single day–all the amazing things–if I remember to see them properly.

Sometimes I get too busy pushing stones up hills. I never look up. So, Mother Nature asked a little louder.

This was really beautiful. Thought I’d share.

(excerpt from an email to a friend…)

The post Sunrise appeared first on Café Casey.

In case you are wondering, yes, Daylight Savings Time is earlier than you remember. 

We used to spring ahead in April and fall back in October, but now Daylight Savings Time is the second weekend of March and the first weekend in November.

Why?

Congress.

In 2005, Congress extended Daylight Savings Time to save energy. It’s part of the Energy Policy Act of 2005. If the sun is out later, you don’t have to turn lights on. Yes, Congress can legislate the sun–for you.

That’s very thoughtful.

But the people had questions.

“But can’t farmers tell time and just stop making hay when the sun doesn’t shine?” one thoughtful constituent was reported to have asked. We don’t want to overwork our elected officials. 

“But what about the people who get up early? Won’t they turn on lights earlier and ruin the savings?” asked another.  

“Can’t you just ban alarm clocks, jobs that start before 10AM, or write up a bill requiring people to sleep in?” The questions kept pouring in, requiring another study that should be released sometime after midterm elections, I’m told. 

What does the change in Daylight Saving Time really do?

From where I sit, it does this:

It makes kids and dogs get up at the buttcrack of dawn in the fall and refuse to wake up for school in the spring.
Young children don’t go to bed for the rest of the school year because “the sun is still out.” They’re overtired. This lowers testing scores to crisis levels. Congress will probably have to take more time creating international vouchers to send kids to Finland so they can learn how to ace tests without winter sunlight like the Finnish kids do.
Changing Daylight Savings Time increases unemployment. Employees forget to show up for work and get fired. This costs the economy money. It’s super funny when people are an hour early in the fall, but when they no-show in the spring, heads roll.
It makes people miss their planes and trains, especially farmers, who have been used to springing forward and falling back in April and October since the times of Benjamin Franklin.
It forces reporters to write articles about Daylight Savings Time when they should be doing important things like retweeting the President or making up news.
Finally, it costs everyone who has to change global schedules around so people can watch the World Cup or catch connecting flights.

Stop complaining… It’s a good thing.

Did you know before railroads, the United States didn’t have a common time at all? Each city and town set its own official time. That meant it could be 3:30 in San Francisco and 3:45 in LA at the same exact time. How can you run the Oscars or get your masseuse in on time like that?

It was when one too many politicians missed their trains going from voting twice in Chicago to meetings at Tammany Hall that they knew it was time for serious action.

In 1869, Saratoga Springs teacher Charles Dowd posed the problem of standardized time to his students, asking them what the focal point of standardizing time should be. Dowd suggested they consider the first rule of solving any problem–follow the money.

In 1869, the money was on trains, as the intercontinental railroad connected the nation.

Dowd and his all-girl roster set about simplifying the eighty plus timetables New England railways used to figure what time lunch should be in each city. He proposed one time zone centered around Washington DC. Locals could still use their time but the trains would run on railway time.

This was taken straight out of the British 1847 playbook which organized time around the prime meridian in Greenwich.

Britain is the size of Oregon, however, and if the Queen gets her tea five minutes late the world will be no worse for wear. A one-zone United States puts the sun to bed at strange times for West Coasters.

Still, standardizing time seemed like a good idea, and the railways were listening. After discussion about creating a few time zones and moving the key US meridian from Washington (home of politics) to New York (home of industrial and railway millionaires)…the idea was promptly forgotten.

Maybe the railroad officials realized Dowd was an all-girls schoolteacher, and as usual when teachers try to influence policy, bureaucracy wins.

Next, railroad engineer, Sanford Fleming presented a similar idea except he wanted time standardized internationally. William Allen, engineer and editor of  The Official Guide to the Railways latched onto Fleming’s idea. Standard time wasn’t only good for commerce and people like Allen who had to update the guides before computers, but for scientists and the military as well.

After all, the North had moved troops in decisive battles during the Civil War–wouldn’t it be a shame if an entire regiment showed up an hour late for the next war?

In 1883, Standard Time was born.

Not to let the credit go to robber barons and railroad engineers, Congress officially passed the Standard Time Act of 1918 (the Calder Act) which enacted Daylight Savings Time, though DST was repealed a year later.

Daylight Savings Time has been enacted, repealed, and reenacted, and changed several times since, especially during wartime “to conserve energy.” Congress passed year-round daylight savings time from 1974 to 1975 in response to the OPEC oil embargo. President Nixon promised it would save tons of energy. 

Studies haven’t shown that to be true, but we do like to stay out later and have fun. 

So, if farmers can tell time, iPhone calendars can factor in time differences, and there is no real energy savings, why is it still around?

Shopping, says NPR.

Candymakers wanted Halloween covered under the auspices of Daylight Savings Time as Congress considered the 2005 bill. According to the National Retail Federation, America spends 8 billion dollars on Halloween. Surely a few of those dollars would be worthwhile putting pumpkins on the seats of Congressmen?

(That really happened.)

Even if you’re not a sugar freak, if it’s light out, you’ll be out later. And if you’re out later, you just may go to the mall.

And so, just like in the 1860’s, if you follow the money, you can usually find a good reason for anything, even losing an hour of sleep this weekend. 

So I’m asking you, please respect the time your Congress puts into making this day productive for you, the voter. Don’t forget to go shopping today with your extra daylight.

You can buy bread and milk and shovels, because I hear New England’s about to get its next winter storm.  

The farmers will have to make hay next week.

The post Daylight Savings Time: Start Making Hay Today! appeared first on Café Casey.

This flag has no star. That’s because the star is you. You are the person who’s hard work, toil, and love for this nation completes our flag. 

That’s what I’d like to say. The truth is this flag remains unfinished because I was arguing.

“Make a flag with 13 stars,” said my husband.

“I don’t want to make a flag with thirteen stars.” I said. I was crafting a country flag with a few big stars in rows representing the fifty states. If you’ve ever tried to paint fifty stars with craft paint on a pallet, you know what I’m talking about. Not fun. I quickly rejected the idea of thirteen in a circle, because the cracks in the wood make it impossible to paint it right. I’d paint eight, tops. A row of three, two, then three. Done!

“Really, you should make thirteen,” he said again.

“I’m not painting thirteen stars in a circle. I’m not. It’s my project.” I was getting annoyed. I smudged star number one, and had to paint over it and wait for the paint to dry.

The art mood was leaving me. When I’m creating, I’m creating. I never know exactly what’s going to come out–only that I’ll hate it while I’m building then love it in the end. I don’t want to be directed when I’m creating–it needs to flow or I stop and walk away.

And that is what became of this poor flag.

But then something happened…

Instead of being annoyed, I began to like the unfinished flag until one day I decided I no longer intend to paint the stars at all. The lack of stars reminds me of how much work there is to be done and how every little contribution means something big in the end.

As the election spiraled out of control, I stopped by the flag from time to time thinking about how much work I have ahead of me to perfect even my corner of the universe, let alone the space from sea to shining sea.

I realized I could do better, do more–as an American and as a human being.

Today, this unfinished flag is our nation.

Every single person in the United States is part of a star–millions of photons making up each of the fifty states, shining, bringing something to the fabric that makes America strong.

“A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure, permanently, half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved — I do not expect the house to fall — but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing or all the other.”

I expect Lincoln’s speech to be quoted ad nauseam today, as well it should. I hope everyone will listen, shake hands, and move on.

I don’t usually write about politics, and I never throw pie on social media, but two days before the election I posted an interview my husband and I did on NPR. It was about how couples supporting opposite candidates survived at home. I talked about my concerns, stated why I’d be voting Democrat instead of independent in this election, and my husband expressed his support for the Republican candidate.

Meanwhile, our nine-year-old jumped up and down in the background hoping for his fifteen minutes of fame. “Vote for Trump!” he said into the microphone.

He loves Mr. Trump. “He said the ‘f’ word….that’s cool.” The boy is angry because I didn’t buy him a Trump bobblehead when he found one in the store this weekend. It was expensive. “I need it!” he said. I wonder if the price will be higher today.

I’m not writing about bobbleheads and botched crafts. I’m writing about where we fell short as a nation this election cycle.

 

A lot of ugly came out of the woodwork disguised as ideology, political opinion, and a better way to fix what ails America.

On election morning, I read the comments under the NPR article–the article about getting along. Name calling. N words, F words, B words… Arguments and fights. Direct insults to me.

I’m public, I can take an insult, but intolerance is my line in the sand. I couldn’t let an “n” word stand, could I?

“Should I delete this?” I asked around.

“Yes, leave it up.” Both sides agreed. After all, free speech is free speech. I don’t have to like an opinion in order to respect a person’s right to it.

I left the comments alone. I voted. I did some sewing and cooking, some homesteady things. I read. I took a few calls. I had a fabulous lunch with an inspiring woman. I enjoyed the day thinking about the things that makes America unlike any other place on the planet.

By bedtime, I had a million notifiers, most from that post. And it was ugly–personal attacks, mudslinging, vitriol.

That’s not the nation I want to build. It’s not the star I’m painting on my flag.

I took the post down, and for a moment, put this up instead:

“I deleted the post with the NPR interview we did.

“The article was about getting along across political lines. I woke up this morning to insults and strong opinions, including the “N” “F” and “B” words.

“I let the discussion go in the spirit of the freedoms our nation represents, but it got too ugly, and for me, that wasn’t okay.

“I work hard to bring joy to people every day. I get out of my car and smile and try to make someone’s day a little better. That’s my personal mission. It’s what I consciously think of every time I leave the house.

“So, I took down the article. I was hoping such a piece would bring people together but I failed in my objective.

“I’ll be going to bed before the election’s called. The results really don’t matter–either way I’ll be getting up early trying to do something good for the people I serve.”

I didn’t want to lecture people–it’s a charged time–so I took that post down, too.

Today, I’m doing this:

I’m going to shake hands with the other team. My President is my President whether I like the politics or not. I will continue to do what I do–fight for social justice, speak out in the face of inequality, work for the underdog, and fix what is broken.

That’s just me. That’s the star I choose to sew or paint in our flag, no matter what party wins in any election from now until the day I’m too old to pick up my needle, thread, or brush.

Then, it will be up to someone else.

A boy I hope I’ve raised well, a generation I’ve shown my best example, someone I’ve impacted without ever knowing… I give them my best, so they can give their best to our cities, states, nation, and world.

If we all do that–no less and no more…be just one photon of light in one our fifty stars, we will have our flag, complete.

We will shine for the world.

The post The Star is You appeared first on Café Casey.

A sad, sad story from my pathetic fashion life…
“May I help you?” asked the saleswoman.

“Yes. Yes, you can.” I said. “I ate too much recently and gained a pants size, maybe more, and none of my clothes fit. I got new jeans but I forgot about school clothes…” I had to get sympathy from her because my coworkers told me to shut up, that everyone’s always trying to lose weight and I was not getting fat.

She heard the panic in my voice and alarm bells in my wallet. I hate clothes shopping. New clothes are never comfortable. They’re always impractical and feel different. I need comfort. I’m active. I hate squeezing, pinching, wedge-giving new cuts of clothes.

You won’t catch me dead in teacher dresses and heels either, freezing my butt off walking around in pain.  Besides, I can never predict the temperature at school–it can go from ninety-five to zero in no time flat and it’ll stay that way indefinitely.

Getting school clothes right is a delicate balance involving performance techwear, comfort, and practical hiker-grade layering skill. Oh yeah–and they have to be stain resistant. Just spray me down with Scotchguard and send me through the door.

School was in two weeks, and the more I went running, the more weight I gained.

“Mom, you should buy some pants that are friends with your thighs,” said my nine-year old boy, trying to help.

There was no doubt about it, I needed to go shopping immediately so I could get to the tailor in time. I can’t always buy clothes off the rack–I’m taller than “petite” and shorter than “regular.” Every designer in the world mocks me, if not with price tags, then with fit.

Nice clothes aren’t designed for schools where kids vomit and dustballs attack slacks. Experienced teachers know this.

I’m finally old enough that I have experience. I understand the teacher who’s still wearing the 70’s dress pants or the 80’s pleated slacks. I used to judge. I’d think, “Get with the decade at least,” but now I high-five them. They’re my heroes. Everyone else is running around paying top-dollar for vintage and they’re already in style.

“Nice platform shoes, dude.” I saw those on a website for a few hundred dollars. And that vest–it’s a classic.

The real reason teachers wear clothes for centuries isn’t fashion, it’s that school ruins clothes.

No one wants to pay for John Varvatos and Prada when it’s only going to get destroyed the first week. That’s like wearing Versace to mow the lawn–someone might question your intelligence on that one. Even though no one questions anyone’s intelligence in education, I’m still too cheap to crack open my wallet for an entire new wardrobe. That’s downright frightening.

But that’s what I had to do, and the saleswoman was waiting.

“I thought shopping might be easier than buying a whalebone corset and hiring a handmaid to help me dress every day.”

“What do you like?” she asked.

“I like my clothes to fit and be comfortable.” Beyond that, everything else was fair game.

She found me a dressing room and brought me a hundred outfits. I felt sorry for her. She was holding an armful of “no’s.”

“No…these feel like church lady pants.”

“No, these give me a wedge…”

There had been one cut of pants I loved–the one I just grew out of. No amount of lettuce was going to resurrect them for this school year.

She nodded and brought me pants with the same label, one size up, but they were not the same. The bottom wasn’t straight–it was a peg leg designed for torture shoes. I might be buying a whole new wardrobe, but I’d never give in to fancy shoes.

“Can I wear boots with these?” I knew the answer in my heart.

“No,” she said. “You need heels or ballet shoes.”

We argued about the plausibility of hiking boots, which she rejected. I bought the pants anyway. I’ll figure it out later.

For years, I wore the same few outfits to school every day–three pairs of Dockers and four or five golf shirts stolen from the business casual playbook at my prior corporate job. I saved a lot of money but no one was very amused by my “school uniform.” These days wearing the same two or three outfits is highly respected as “minimalist” and “zero waste.” The cool kids avoid shopping by saying they’re saving the earth.

I think that’s pretty nifty.

These days I’m a little better at fashion–I buy the same things over and over when the 40% coupon comes out. I want to put the same clothes on reorder, but designers insist on choosing new cuts, colors and “seasonal styles.”  I hate that.

Thanks to modern technology, I can find styles untouched by time in other fashionista’s closets in designer repurposing shops like ThredUp and Poshmark. One girl’s wedge is another girl’s treasure. You can even sell your “I thought I’d like those but they gave me a wedge,” clothing you’ve been sitting on long enough to call them “vintage,” and get top dollar.

Now that my one-size bigger wardrobe is complete, all that extra weight’s flying off as if it knew I just hung the last, larger, pair of pants in my closet.

Dammit, I want to wear those clothes, but they’re a little too big now.

So, I bought and ate a Labor Day cake and everything still fits. Now that I discovered online thrifting, I can eat a second cake and know that I can get a one-size-up wardrobe with the touch of an app.

And so my shopping is done, with much less stress than normal.

The saleslady is going to heaven, and I got to have my cake and eat it too.

That’s a win-win.

Let the school year begin…

 

Yes, it’s time for a new book! I’m just finishing up the edits to “A Broke Teacher’s Guide to Success.” Stay tuned!  Check out the BrokeTeacher project at BrokeTeacher.com for tips and tricks for living like royalty on teacher pay & join the BrokeTeacher newsletter to be the first to know about the release. 

The post Fashion Emergency: What I Do When I Get Fat appeared first on Café Casey.

This post was first published in The Mission on Medium. 

If you’re an aspiring or current educational leader, you know first-year teachers are cheap, but they don’t stay cheap for long. Hiring isn’t like buying a car — cars depreciate right off the lot, but teachers cost more and more with every year experience. That cost can add up!

That’s why schools need a steady flow of new teachers — especially sinceturnover rates have more than doubled from around 9% in 2009 to 20% in 2014. If you’re in a busy district, chances are you have more turnover than a French bakery, and you’ll be needing new teachers soon.

It’s a well-known fact you can get at least two new teachers for the price of an old one. That’s a bargain — Buy One Get One Free on steroids.

New teachers are amazing. They’re enthusiastic. They never complain when you “ask” them coach ten sports or organize the pep rally. They’re grateful to get the toughest schedules — they see it as a challenge. They hang inspirational signs in the hall and tell everyone to “Have a good weekend.” They answer their email twenty-four hours a day.

Teachers who have been around the block talk about “the good old days” before everyone taught to ‘The Test’” and about the times when nobody worried about standardizing or whether Finland was kicking our ass.

Any educational leader worth his or her salt would do well to hire a handful of brand new teachers who cost less and won’t grumble about any of these things — they’ll just take the curriculum they’re given and teach their guts out until they knock the scores out of the park.

If you’re the type of 21st century educational leader who really wants to please a school board you may ask, “What are the best ways to squeeze the most out of my new hires before they become experienced and too expensive? You’ve got to handle this quickly. Otherwise, it’ll be too late.

I remember my first year teaching like it was yesterday. I was so excited I would’ve advised all the classes, started twenty clubs, and I actually invented sports to coach. I was upset there were only twenty-four hours in the day to dedicate to student success. I piled on tens of thousands of dollars of additional student loan debt to teach, and it was so worth it because I was working in a system that would impact lives forever. I didn’t even mind keeping my prior job on weekends so I’d have a place to go xerox things when the school copier broke.

It’s hard to be an education leader…

I give principals and superintendents a lot of credit. Being an education leader today is way harder than being a teacher, because not only do you have to deal with people like me but you must answer to a Board of Education, District Dudes, Curriculum Gods, the state and federal Departments of Education, and the good Lord himself, who quite often takes a break from working on world peace to make sure test scores are where they should be.

That’s a lot of pressure. I want to help.

Here are six ways you can shape school policies to make sure you get the most work out of your teachers this year before they become one of the statistics that run screaming to other careers before their first five years are up. If that happens, you’ll have to pull out your checkbook and find more.

Give them the worst schedules, but give them hope. Let everyone say, “We’ve paid our dues and someday, you’ll get a great schedule too.” Tell them trial by fire helps them become strong, and it’s best to learn by doing. Let them do — a lot. Tell them how much they should appreciate the hands-off room you’re giving them. Then, go away and drink coffee for a year or two and let them develop.

The good teachers will survive, but beware — they’ll become more expensive as they gain experience. Don’t let too many of those slip through the cracks or your budget will be shot!

Take away all the tech they just learned about in their teacher training program. Your new teachers are probably pretty psyched to try everything they just learned about in their teacher prep programs. The real world of school doesn’t actually allow them to use such things.

Make sure your technology stays “broken, blocked and banned” so students learn the basics on paper first. Set the tech bar low by maintaining your Windows XP and spotty wi-fi so your new teachers will become fans of the fundamentals instead of bugging you to unblock YouTube or pay for fancy apps and gadgets. Those are budget killers, and you have tests and mandates to pay for.

Ask them to coach, advise, and sit on every committee. New teachers are the best when it comes to coaching and advising clubs. They want a chance to shine in the fun stuff, too. Award them at least three clubs and two teams so they can add value.

Offer to put a pull-out bed in the faculty room for those nights when they need to catch up on their classwork after events and games. Let them know they’re free to bring in coffee for the coffee pot, too. They’ll appreciate it.

Always keep them guessing. You don’t want your new teachers getting complacent or bored, so always keep them on their toes. Make sure they know how fragile the education ecosystem is — layoff season’s coming, you’re not sure about next year, there could be positions shifting.

Have people around who can say, “You’re so lucky to even have a job,” every so often so the new teachers will be grateful for whatever position you put them in next year. This will encourage them to work extra hard to be the ones that raise the scores, get the medals, and showcase the school in the community.

Indeed, student lives are at stake and the American life as we know it is tied to their performance. There’s no time to relax. Remind them often.

5. Give them a classroom and an old text book in September and then stop by again in June. They’re professionals, trust them to do their jobs. Point them to the school manual in case they have any questions, and make sure they have a working key to the faculty bathroom.

They’ll appreciate the vote of confidence you give them by never showing up again. The key here is “freedom.”

Evaluate them once or twice a year with forms, rubrics, and checkboxes so they know how they’re doing. Stop by when they least expect it — the week before vacation or summer is especially good for enjoying classroom festivities — and check off the boxes, nodding your head vaguely. If they ask “Did I do well?” check off another box before heading to your next meeting.

Wait a few weeks and leave some forms with at least fifteen educational buzzwords guaranteed to help them improve. Don’t be too specific with the feedback or you’ll stifle their creativity. Tell them to keep working hard.

Does this situation feel vaguely familiar to you?

If so, we’ve got some work to do.

Teacher turnover is higher than it’s ever been before — twenty percent across the board, but forty to fifty percent for teachers in their first five years. New teachers are fleeing the field.

This costs the nation an estimated $2.2 billion dollars a year according to a study conducted by Richard Ingersoll at the University of Pennsylvania. When teachers become burned out or quit, districts spend time and money recruiting and onboarding, and students suffer.

The new teacher learning curve has hidden costs as teachers learn to hone their material and maximize efficiency. Having to constantly hire fresh starts the whole training cycle from scratch.

Schools with high turnover rates feel less stable for staff and students alike — it’s harder to bond, collaborate, and create a culture of success when people constantly quit and substitutes must fill the gaps.

According to Ingersoll, teachers leave because they do not feel they have a say in the factors that affect their jobs. He reports teacher autonomy to be one of the main issues in teachers leaving the field. Low pay causes some turnover— but is surprisingly not the driving factor.

Dr. Ingersoll noted out that while business and industry know the cost of employee turnover, many schools do not — they fail to see beyond the initial benefit of being able to hire new teachers at a lower cost.

New teachers often receive the toughest assignments and are culture shocked when they finish programs in colleges with cutting-edge thinking only to find schools are decades behind.

I’ve watched teachers leave education “for a better offer,” “because this isn’t what I imagined it would be at all,” or worse yet, “You could replace me with a robot. I don’t have any control.”

If you’re a current or aspiring educational leader, valuing your new teachers should be your number one priority.

How do we solve this?

In a world full of consultants, theories, articles, and databases, solutions for these problems can be relatively easy and inexpensive. It all boils down to creating a culture of respect and balance where every member of the team is equally valued and has a voice. Then, you can stop the mass teacher exodus and create a school family that sticks together, allow new teachers to become experienced teachers, and make your school a well-oiled machine and center of community pride.

Create a mentor program

Mentoring works. Design a mentor program to onboard new teachers and get them the support they need. New teachers benefit from a quality support system where they can securely ask for help without feeling they will be rated poorly. Pair each new teacher with an experienced teacher on day one, but make sure there are safeguards in place in case that match doesn’t click. For a mentor to be effective, he or she must be able to be honest, approachable, and encouraging. When this relationship exists, both parties grow — the new teacher is free to ask for feedback that will be truly valuable, and the experienced teacher learns from the new teacher as well.

Don’t limit yourself to researching mentor programs in education. Look at successful programs in several industries, pulling the best of the best elements for your organization.

Make sure you define goals, develop quality training materials, get the right people to assist, and meet stakeholders and participants to measure goals and improve the program for the next new group.

Create a true open door policy

Personally greet each new employee, and give them your contact information. Send a note or email a few weeks into the school year. If you’re a leader in a large district this may be a challenge, but you can write short notes on printed cards, or customize emails from a basic template to keep things personal but efficient.

If you’re an educational leader responsible for districts, curriculum, or policy, you may not be someone new teachers see every day, but when you take those extra moments to create a transparent, warm, and friendly climate, the effects ripple out immediately.

You’re the type of leader everyone wants to pull together for, even when things get tough.

Create a PLN

Mentoring programs work wonderfully, but a combination of scheduled down time and self-directed professional development often sparks fires that reignite learning and culture in schools. You can create a true Professional Learning Network both inside and beyond the walls of your school very easily.

Designate an hour a month for New Teacher time. Put out a coffee pot and some snacks, and let teachers get together to unwind.
Get new — and experienced teachers — on Twitter. Have a school handle and hashtag for shoutouts, classroom victories, and showcasing great things happening in the school. Encourage teachers to get involved with Twitter chats like New Teacher Chat at 8PM ET on Wednesdays (#ntchat) and #satchat, #edchat, or field-specific chats that occur during the week.
Post a schedule for regional events like EdCamps and other conferences. Encourage new and experienced teachers to attend these events as school teams, then provide time and space to share out the learning, whether it’s in a faculty meeting, on Google docs or a school YouTube channel. Highlight classrooms that are putting these lessons into action and create a system for teachers to observe each other to see these successes.

End isolation

I once introduced myself to a woman with whom I’d been working for two years — and never met. Teacher isolation can get bad. New teachers especially need a spirit of teamwork, camaraderie, and esprit de corps. They must to feel a sense of “you matter,” as author and inspirational speakerAngela Maiers says in her TED talk. Get teachers mixing, collaborating, and laughing right from the get go. Time invested in building a culture of collaboration will pay off 100x in the end.

End hazing

Make sure new teachers get schedules that allow them feel successful, then let them grow into the more difficult classes. Create a welcoming culture where new teachers are valued immediately.

Do not allow “it’s always been done this way,” or “you have to pay your dues,” to be part of your culture. If it has been that way in the past, push the reset button with morale-building events. It’s difficult to rebuild a challenged school culture overnight, but chip at the negative influences little by little and by any means necessary, and you’ll see change over time.

Sometimes, when I meet educators who seems to be negative, I discover they were that positive, enthusiastic teacher out of the gate who was disregarded time and time again until they shrugged their shoulders and said “Why bother?” Again, push the reset button. Have the entire leadership team look for opportunities to reinvigorate and re-engage, showing every single person they are a critical part of the success of the school.

How you will succeed in getting the most out of first-year teachers

If you’re an educational leader you’ve got a difficult job. You’ve got to rally the troops and get them marching in the same direction despite many challenges. The best place to start is with your new teachers.

By taking the extra time to hire the right people, then putting them in places where they can flourish and grow, you will plant the seeds for a positive culture that will far outlast your own career.

Create a positive culture from the bottom up as well as the top down. Create systems and supports where everyone is responsible for contributing to the school and everyone is heard, and even the newest voice is an equal part of the team.

That is how you will get the most out of your first-year teachers, and before long they will be your teacher leaders. You’ll be out of the revolving-door teacher game forever — because everyone will want to stay.

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