“It was a crisis and an opportunity,” Goeke said. It was a chance to bring in a young, fresh group of teachers familiar as familiar with technology as with the textbook.

In the last decade, Vancouver’s teaching corps has turned over by 65 percent.

Statewide, school districts are bracing themselves for an exodus of teachers — those Baby Boomers who had reached their 30 years of employment. But recent studies suggest that a slumping economy after 9/11 lessened the impact of retiring teachers.

A new problem has emerged, however. Washington state school districts are struggling to retain the teachers for whom retirement is still decades away.

State schools Superintendent Terry Bergeson wrote in her five-year strategic plan that Washington’s attrition rate for new teachers is higher than the national average.

“Lower paying districts have particular difficulty attracting and retaining teachers,” Bergeson wrote.

The result, she said, is that “lower-income and minority students often don’t have equal access to the best-prepared instructors.”

Rich Wood of the Washington Education Association said that many prospective teachers are discouraged by low pay.

“Washington teachers earn $3,000 less than the national average and $12,000 less than the West Coast average,” Wood said. “Look at the number of people who have teaching degrees and aren’t retired, but aren’t teaching. A lot of people made the decision that it’s not worth it.”

Teacher pay in Washington averages $46,000 annually.

Revamping recruitment

Goeke decided to flout the statistics by changing the recruiting model.

“I was taken aback by how archaic our recruiting processes are in education compared to other professions,” Goeke told educators in an online chat forum hosted by Education Week. “We hire late, we take forever to make a hire decision. … We shouldn’t be surprised that top candidates, and even medium candidates, give up on us and take an offer outside of education that is more forthcoming and more enticing.”

He studied what he calls the millennial generation — those who graduated from high school in 2000 or later.

He determined they weren’t obsessed with money like Baby Boomers or Generation Xers.

“Out of all the generations we’ve had, this is the perfect generation for teaching,” Goeke said. “The millennial generation is more interested in vision and philosophy. They don’t want to identify with that portable over there. They’re interested in branding.”

What he couldn’t offer in money, he offered in support. New teachers would be paired with mentors for their first year or two and provided with weekly feedback.

Goeke also decided that in spite of nationwide teacher shortages, he would be picky and hire only ideal candidates.

At career fairs, Goeke’s human resources team puts potential hires through six interviews. They don’t care about lesson plans or portfolios. Rather, they look for eyes that sparkle when the conversation turns to kids.

“We decided to recruit based on characteristics we can’t teach – moral purpose, strong sense of advocacy,” Goeke said.

Last week, the team went to Chicago and screened 400 candidates. Only 16 made the cut. 

The results have proven positive. Vancouver retains 90 percent of its teachers after five years. (Nationally, districts keep half their teachers after five years.) Discipline and grievance issues have gone down by 80 percent, and student test scores have gone up.

Young teachers often means young families; about 100 teachers a year take maternity leave, versus two or three a decade ago. Goeke wants those teachers to return, so he devised a new policy: Family leave up to five years.

“If it’s one of our great teachers, we want them to stay,” he said.

And when they do return, he continued, they’re that much more prepared to handle kids.

Isolde Raftery can be reached at 360-735-4546 or isolde.raftery@columbian.com.