Posted on June 05, 2025

Deer Park ISD: Unlocking the Key to Strong Educator Retention by Starting with Preparation

Categories: Teaching Practice, Pathways into Teaching

A teacher works with two students on a class activity.

On the Ground with RTAPs is a monthly newsletter published on LinkedIn, highlighting best practices and insights on building, launching, and sustaining Registered Teacher Apprenticeship Programs.

With two kids enrolled in Deer Park ISD schools, Board of Trustees member Jason Morris has a personal investment in the sustainability and strength of the district’s teacher talent pipeline.

“For every industry, the biggest Achilles’ heel is the talent,” Morris shares.

And, encouragingly, Deer Park ISD has done wonders in that department.

Located just outside of Houston, Deer Park ISD (DPISD), which serves 12,500 students, is situated in a city where the main industries are manufacturing and petrochemical. Tall towers from its oil refineries are a familiar sight to locals in the Houston area. The city is also known as the birthplace of Texas – where the Lone Star State secured its freedom with the win of the Battle of San Jacinto in 1836.

What’s lesser known – but arguably deserves much more attention – is DPISD’s strong commitment, and success, of hiring and retaining teachers. In a state with significant reliance on uncertified teachers, the vast majority of DPISD’s teachers are certified: only 6% of its 2024-25 hires are uncertified, compared to the state’s average of a whopping 56%. Its attrition rate is also several percentage points lower than Texas’s current rate of 12.2%.

The key to their success? Investing in aspiring teachers, starting with their preparation.

Science teacher Michelle Lawrence (right) and apprentice Ryann Allison observe two students working on a class activity.

For example, at Deer Park Junior High, half of its staff are graduates of the district, while one-third of that group are graduates from that very school. Across the district, 63 percent of its apprentices are DPISD graduates. “We have this wonderful recursive practice of people coming home,” says Superintendent Dr. Tiffany Regan, Ed.D.. “That’s because it feels like home, which is definitely a point of pride.”

So when Regan saw an opportunity to strengthen its grow-your-own teacher pipeline by launching a Registered Teacher Apprenticeship Program (RTAP), it was almost a no-brainer to many.

“The benefits outweigh the costs, even if the initial investment seems high,” says Morris. “With apprenticeships, the hidden costs come into focus over time. When districts hire teachers from pathways that don’t adequately prepare them for the realities of K-12 classrooms, those teachers often leave sooner. That turnover cost doesn’t show up directly on a financial statement, but it’s significant. Apprenticeships not only help retain well-prepared educators, but they also offer a hidden benefit: they enhance the effectiveness of mentor teachers by keeping their skills sharp.”

Morris’s comments align with Learning Policy Institute research that estimates a cost of $16,450 to replace a teacher in a medium school district (about 12,000 students).

Regan first learned about RTAPs from seeing how it was being implemented at BRAZOSPORT ISD through Kristi Kirschner, PHR, the district’s former Chief Human Resources Officer. Kirschner eventually launched edwell, a nonprofit based in Texas that works with apprenticeship employers and educator-preparation programs (EPPs) to develop sustainable and high-quality RTAPs. Its enrichED Pathways program is a structure that provides training and development to teacher apprentices through a series of four “on-ramps” – connecting their classroom experiences with aligned coaching and coursework with scaffolding and increasing responsibility – and helping manage funding through fostering relationships with, for example, workforce development boards and the labor sector.

Excerpted snapshot of edwell’s “on-ramps” from Brazosport ISD.

Apprentice Jessica Garcia offering guidance to students in her mentor teacher Lourdes Donato’s classroom.

Andrea Dickson, edwell’s Director of Apprenticeships, explains how their experience supporting multiple RTAPs has allowed them to be responsive to local community needs while holding a high bar for preparation:

With talent retention top of mind, Denise Batchelor, the district’s HR Coordinator, had been seeing a concerning pattern in recent years: “Like other districts in the state of Texas and around the nation, we were all seeing a shortage in educators. We were getting a lot of great certified teachers, but they didn’t come in with the experience of working with our Deer Park students. So we were getting qualified applicants, but the retention rates were falling because they weren't as successful as they could be the first couple of years despite our best efforts. This apprenticeship program is a great opportunity to find the talent that already existed in our district and connect them with a mentor and edwell’s on-ramp program, so that when you put them in the classroom, they’re going to have a whole year of teaching under their belt.”

Apprenticeships like this one are a powerful way to provide aspiring teachers with early, integrated practice experiences. While they’re not the only teaching pathway to do so, we believe every pathway should prioritize this commitment to classroom-based instructional experiences under the direction of a mentor teacher. For DPISD, apprenticeships have found that balance.

Regan also saw this opportunity to demonstrate that the district was invested in these aspiring teachers long-term from day one: “One of the differences is that with the apprentice teacher, they're truly, they're one of us. They're not visiting from the university two days a week and Oh yeah, where's your ID? And that kind of thing. They're a part of the staff and our tribe and our community from day one.”

For Michelle Lawrence, a sixth-grade science teacher, she sees the hiring of apprentices as three-fold: beneficial for the district’s long-term recruitment and retention of teacher talent, invaluable additional support for herself as the teacher of record, and, importantly, an opportunity for apprentices to be part of an incredibly supportive district community:

Staff and leaders from DFI, edwell, and Deer Park ISD.

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