According to a March 15 report from Brown’s Annenberg Institute for School Reform, the Providence Public School District continues to face growing teacher attrition — a challenge since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. The report, part of the Annenberg Institute’s ongoing partnership with PPSD and the Rhode Island Department of Education, also detailed the district’s struggles to attract new applicants and increase diversity among educators.
“It’s way more nuanced than I think we were expecting” when research began last fall, said Kate Donohue, senior project manager at the Annenberg Institute and an author of the report. Donohue added that it is difficult to distinguish which challenges covered by the report can be attributed to the pandemic and which are due to the 2019 state takeover of the district.
“In our brief, we report on the three-year (teacher) retention rates,” Donohue said. “It’s lower than the rest of the state, but when you look at other urban districts, there's more and more data coming out … which are on par (with) or higher than PPSD.”
But “that doesn't mean it's an issue that they shouldn't care about,” she added.
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