Bridging Theory and Practice: New Project Focuses on What School Principals Can Do To Keep Teachers in Classrooms
04/30/2025
By Jessica Zimmerman, for the UNLV National Institute for the Advancement of Education (NIAE)
It’s no secret that teacher retention is an important issue all across the country, as well as in Southern Nevada. Even though teacher retention in Nevada is improving, according to the NV Department of Education, CCSD is still struggling to find and keep qualified educators. One UNLV assistant professor is setting out to research another avenue for improving the teacher retention issue: school principals.
Dr. Jacob D. Skousen is an assistant professor of Educational Policy and Leadership in the UNLV College of Education. As a teacher and a former principal of both a middle and high school, Dr. Skousen knows first-hand the challenges that principals face every day.
“One of the things that you learn quickly as a principal is that you don’t have much time to think – to really process decisions that you’re making, the work that you’re doing – because you’re inundated with work,” Dr. Skousen said. “In the midst of all that, you don’t have time to stop and really think deeply about larger issues that need to be solved, or to be purposeful about every step that you take, because the majority of your time involves dealing with issues right in front of you.”
In 2016, Dr. Skousen made the transition into higher education, joining the Educational Policy and Leadership program at the University of Northern Colorado, where he worked on principal licensure and began his research journey. Three years later, Dr. Skousen joined UNLV, shortly after it obtained its Carnegie R1 research designation, to focus on teaching and research.
“I’ve loved the opportunity to be able to develop my research and spend more time writing. I love teaching and I feel fortunate that I’ve been able to work at UNLV and have the time to expand and develop my research agenda on leadership development and equity,” Dr. Skousen said.
Principal Partnerships Project
As a practitioner in P-12 education and a researcher, Dr. Skousen works to bridge theory and practice. Last year, Dr. Skousen was an awardee of a National Institute for the Advancement of Education (NIAE) grant to focus on working with local principals to develop innovative strategies for retaining teachers. The grant is funding his project, titled “Principal Partnerships: A Collaborative Approach to Teacher Retention and Community Engagement,” which aims to engage principals in developing innovative, evidence-based strategies that enhance teacher retention and promote meaningful community engagement.
“I was looking at working with and engaging principals in a professional learning community, a PLC, to engage in evidence-based strategies that enhance teacher retention and work with them to develop purposeful teacher retention plans,” Dr. Skousen said. “We have focused specifically on schools in Henderson because they were open to collaborating and so I designed this project specifically towards that group, thinking of this as a pilot and then to move it to other schools across Southern Nevada that may have similar challenges.”
Through qualitative participatory action research (PAR), Dr. Skousen and his student researchers – Yichen Yang and Rebecca Dow – have been collecting and analyzing data through online pre- and post-surveys, principal learning community meetings, interviews with school principals, and feedback surveys.
Although many factors influence why teachers leave their schools or even the profession altogether, such as salary, professional development, lack of support, internship opportunities and mentoring, this project specifically focuses on what principals can control.
During the community meetings, Dr. Skousen shared empirical evidence with the principals about research studies on teacher retention and what principals are doing to better retain teachers, as well as discussing how they can use what has been learned in their schools.
“We talked about the ways in which their schools are incorporating some of these ideas or how they could be more purposeful in applying some of those ideas in their own work. Each meeting concluded with an organized, integrated activity where they are purposeful about three key questions:
– What? – What did we think about and learned today?
– So what? – What does this mean? What are the applications?
– Now what? – What specific actions can we take moving forward?
This approach is very purposeful in terms of being pragmatic, action and practice-oriented.”
What’s Next?
Dr. Skousen has already provided some of the initial project principals with teacher retention plans and so the next steps will be to follow up with them on if the plans worked, how the teachers responded, the number of teachers retained due to actions on the plans, etc. He is also continuing to collect data through the surveys, meetings, and semi-structured interviews with the participating principals.
As this project continues through its data collection and analysis phase, Dr. Skousen is aiming to continue moving forward and hoping to connect with other principals across Southern Nevada.
“We could expand this in Southern Nevada relatively easily, which is what I’ve been thinking about for next year. What might teacher retention plans look like in North Las Vegas? How can we recruit principals that may know each other because they’re in buildings down the road from each other? And how could we help them to say, these are the challenges that we have, let’s have some conversations about what we can do about it and how we can help each other,” Dr. Skousen said.
As both a practitioner and a researcher, Dr. Skousen has experience on both sides of theory and practice. He wants universities and practitioners to work together for a common goal: keeping teachers in the schools.
“I often think about how we can bring these groups together. Instead of us staying in our separate camps, arguing and pointing out flaws of each other’s work, we can come together and figure out how we can work as a cohesive group,” Dr. Skousen said. “When it’s all said and done, I think it will be those little pieces of what people do that could really have an impact on someone.”
As this project is still in its early phases of data collection and analysis, Dr. Skousen continues to accept participation from Henderson school principals who want to be part of this important initiative focused on strengthening teacher retention through leadership, support, and research-driven strategies. Principals have the opportunity to share insights from their perspective, implement evidence-based practices in their schools, and collaborate with other dedicated leaders who are committed to fostering environments that promote teacher retention and overall school success. If you’re a principal who would be interested in participating in this important project, please contact Dr. Skousen today at Jacob.Skousen@unlv.edu.
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.
