Turnover Among Nebraska Public School Teachers

Abstract

their positions for the school year of 1936-37 was made by William Bogar1 for the Research Department of the Nebraska State Teachers' Association. The Nebraska unicameral legislature passed a continuing contract law in 1937, which was sponsored by the Association, and the purposes of the study were to (a) gain an insight into this most important pro fessional problem in the state and (b) gather data which might aid in evaluating the effects of this contract law. Tentative plans call for a follow-up canvass of the same schools for the year 1937-38 to determine the actual effects of the law on turnover after it had been in effect for a complete school year. Data were gathered from a total of 442 school systems in the state by means of a questionnaire. These schools employed a total of 4,821 teachers, which is defined to include all members of the administrative and teaching staff. No attempt was made to secure information from the rural elementary schools, which do not come under the provisions of the contract law, or from the metropolitan Omaha and Lincoln city sys tems, which have their own "permanent assignment" policy of appoint ing teachers. Reports were secured for sixty-two percent of all of the teachers of the state, exclusive of these two groups, and hence the data are quite complete and should present a valid picture of turnover con ditions in the town school systems of Nebraska. This investigation was limited to a study of the amount of turnover and the circumstances under which a teacher leaves a position?resigna tion before or after election, dismissal or failure to reelect, or automatic withdrawal?which can be reported largely on the basis of objective evi dence. This procedure should avoid some of the distortion and biased reports which result from attempts to secure subjective statements of the "causes for withdrawal.''