From Research to Action: One Researcher’s Journey to Improve Teacher Retention in Nevada
01/15/2025
By Jessica Zimmerman for the UNLV National Institute for the Advancement of Education (NIAE)
A Nevada native, Elizabeth Hofschulte Collins is deeply rooted in the state’s educational landscape. Having graduated from a CCSD high school, earning a bachelor’s degree from the University of Reno, a master’s degree from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and now a doctoral candidate at UNLV, Nevada education is extremely important to Collins.
That’s why Collins is teaming up with CCSD teacher Brooke Wheatley on developing a new mentorship program to help novice teachers in Nevada attain National Board Certification.
Collins has been researching teacher retention and investigating the current state of the teacher workforce for the National Institute for the Advancement of Education (NIAE) for quite some time. She recently wrote an article on the teacher shortage in Nevada where she states three potentially viable strategies to address the teacher shortage, such as new teacher mentoring and competitive salary schedules.
Through her research, Collins found that “29 and a half percent of novice teachers, meaning those in their first five years of their career, actually stay in the profession.” This research did include 2020 and 2021 during the height of the pandemic, so “that’s going to be a limitation of the data and follow-up analyses could show different amounts,” Collins said. “But overall, from 2018 to 2023, novice teachers who started in quarter one of the 2018-19 school year, 29 and a half percent lasted past five years.”
Collins also found that “mentorship is one part of increasing our teacher retention because a lot of teachers don’t feel prepared to be in a classroom right now, which is shown by a high number of emergency credentialed teachers – teachers that have an alternative route to licensure, which isn’t necessarily bad, but might not be the best route for them.”
This research sparked a discussion about a mentorship program around National Board Certification, which aims to help educators become more effective, help them stay in Nevada longer, and to increase the total number of National Board Certified teachers in the state.
Collins and Wheatley’s next step is to solicit a grant or gift to launch the pilot mentorship program within the year. This support program is for teachers who would benefit by having mentors utilize their own experiences to guide others through the certification process.
Once the mentoring program is implemented, Collins plans to use network analysis to examine how the mentoring pairs are functioning, if there are any problems that need to be addressed, or if any changes need to be made.
Collins also has experience in survey development and design which she is utilizing to create a survey that will be sent out to teachers who may be interested in the program.
“This is an important initiative that I am excited to be involved with as I have several family members and friends who are teachers in the state of Nevada,” Collins said. “I love to research, design research, and understand why a certain research problem is occurring, so being able to use my experiences and give back to Nevada at the same time, feels incredibly rewarding.”
The content of this article is produced in collaboration with the faculty, research, practitioner, and community partners featured herein and the National Institute for the Advancement of Education (NIAE), an interdisciplinary institute housed at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV) College of Education that engages in interdisciplinary research-practice-policy efforts that transform PK-20 education through innovation, excellence, evidence, and equity.
For more information about NIAE, visit niae.sites.unlv.edu.
