{"id":212324,"date":"2026-03-20T02:07:12","date_gmt":"2026-03-20T02:07:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/212324\/"},"modified":"2026-03-20T02:07:12","modified_gmt":"2026-03-20T02:07:12","slug":"richardson-isd-sees-increased-teacher-retention-after-investment-in-pay-benefits","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/212324\/","title":{"rendered":"Richardson ISD sees increased teacher retention after investment in pay, benefits"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\t\t\tRichardson ISD has seen improved teacher retention after several years of investments in compensation and benefits, according to a presentation at the March 12<\/a> school board meeting.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe took a leap of faith a couple years ago to do these things because these were not small investments, and they were going to take time for us to see the results,\u201d trustee Eric Eager said. \u201cBut who\u2019s going to benefit from these great teachers? Our kids.\u201d<\/p>\n

The big picture<\/p>\n

Chris Goodson, assistant superintendent of human resources, said RISD began investing in increased teacher pay and benefits several years ago in order to increase teacher retention in the district. In addition to compensation, investments included child care programs<\/a>, expanded access to a sick leave bank, the RISD Acute Care Clinic and access to the East Texas A&M Mental Wellness Clinic.<\/p>\n

Over a two-year period, Goodson said teacher turnover has decreased from a rate of 17.4% to a rate of 11.54% this school year.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt has been a long time since we\u2019ve seen teacher turnover that low,\u201d Goodson said.<\/p>\n

RISD\u2019s teacher turnover rate is also lower than the state average for the first time in more than 10 years.<\/p>\n

Superintendent Tabitha Branum said the district has also seen a significant decrease in vacant positions at the start of the school year, with no grade-level content vacancies at the beginning of the 2025-26 school year.<\/p>\n

Zooming in<\/p>\n

After several years of sustained compensation growth, Goodson said RISD has the highest salaries in DFW for teachers with over 20 years of experience. The district has also risen in rankings for compensation for teachers of all experience levels.<\/p>\n

Along with the compensation growth, Goodson said RISD has an increasing number of teachers with over 10 years of experience.<\/p>\n

Goodson said RISD also began providing additional opportunities for teachers to increase their compensation, including the Teacher Incentive Allotment<\/a>, which designates high-performing teachers to receive funds through their district, and National Board Certification<\/a>, a voluntary advanced professional certification.<\/p>\n

Both of these programs generated $1.3 million in additional pay for RISD teachers in 2024-25, Goodson said.<\/p>\n

Trustee Megan Timme said many teachers previously felt like they needed to advance to administrative roles in order to increase their compensation, but the district\u2019s pay growth and opportunities like the Teacher Incentive Allotment have allowed more teachers to choose to stay in the classroom.<\/p>\n

What they\u2019re saying<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is a direct correlation [from] experienced classroom teachers to great student outcomes,\u201d Eager said.<\/p>\n

Trustee Rachel McGowan said that RISD needs to continue the investment in teacher benefits.<\/p>\n

\u201cIncreasing sick leave bank for our employees is really important as well,\u201d McGowan said. \u201cI know all this takes money, so I\u2019d like to keep it a high priority that we continue to increase these things that are retaining our teachers.\u201d<\/p>\n

In addition to concrete benefits and opportunities, Branum said teacher retention efforts include a culture of support at the district level.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are maintaining a steadfast approach to our teachers,\u201d Branum said. \u201cIf they have feedback, we want to listen, we want to respond, so that they feel supported in ways outside of just compensation or day cares.\u201d<\/p>\n

Goodson said RISD also aims to recruit diverse teachers that represent the RISD community. About 39% of RISD teachers represent a minority demographic compared to almost 70% of students, so Goodson said there is \u201cmore work to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery district strives to find a staff and teacher corps that is representative of the students that they teach,\u201d Goodson said. \u201cThat representation matters so that the students see themselves in the front of the classroom and in different positions.\u201d<\/p>\n

Going forward<\/p>\n

Goodson said recent state grant allotments will allow the district to expand recruitment, training and mentorship programs. The district aims to continue developing programs and recruitment efforts for administrator roles, as well as strengthening pathways from teaching to administration.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe focus on teachers, we\u2019re going to continue to do that, but we also know that quality of leadership at the campus level is why teachers stay as well,\u201d Goodson said.<\/p>\n

The district is also in the process of upgrading its application system to create a more streamlined process that will provide more helpful data for hiring committees, Goodson said, as well as implementing additional onboarding efforts for new hires to strengthen employee retention.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need to go beyond just some of the initial touch points of \u2018Come on in and sign the contract,\u2019\u201d Goodson said. \u201cWe know that if we can do a better job of that then we have people who are establishing their roots earlier so that they can stay longer.\u201d\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Richardson ISD has seen improved teacher retention after several years of investments in compensation and benefits, according to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":212325,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[83161,7336,83160,35380,160,162,161,11746,83159,5810,8789,8127],"class_list":["post-212324","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-plano","tag-administration","tag-benefits","tag-classrooms","tag-pay","tag-plano","tag-plano-headlines","tag-plano-news","tag-recruitment","tag-retention","tag-richardson-isd","tag-school-board","tag-teachers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212324","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=212324"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212324\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/212325"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=212324"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=212324"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=212324"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}