Richardson ISD sees increased teacher retention after investment in pay, benefits

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.

“It has been a long time since we’ve seen teacher turnover that low,” Goodson said.

RISD’s teacher turnover rate is also lower than the state average for the first time in more than 10 years.

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.

Zooming in

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.

Along with the compensation growth, Goodson said RISD has an increasing number of teachers with over 10 years of experience.

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

Both of these programs generated $1.3 million in additional pay for RISD teachers in 2024-25, Goodson said.

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’s pay growth and opportunities like the Teacher Incentive Allotment have allowed more teachers to choose to stay in the classroom.

What they’re saying

“There is a direct correlation [from] experienced classroom teachers to great student outcomes,” Eager said.

Trustee Rachel McGowan said that RISD needs to continue the investment in teacher benefits.

“Increasing sick leave bank for our employees is really important as well,” McGowan said. “I know all this takes money, so I’d like to keep it a high priority that we continue to increase these things that are retaining our teachers.”

In addition to concrete benefits and opportunities, Branum said teacher retention efforts include a culture of support at the district level.

“We are maintaining a steadfast approach to our teachers,” Branum said. “If 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.”

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 “more work to do.”

“Every district strives to find a staff and teacher corps that is representative of the students that they teach,” Goodson said. “That representation matters so that the students see themselves in the front of the classroom and in different positions.”

Going forward

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.

“We focus on teachers, we’re going to continue to do that, but we also know that quality of leadership at the campus level is why teachers stay as well,” Goodson said.

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.

“We need to go beyond just some of the initial touch points of ‘Come on in and sign the contract,’” Goodson said. “We 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.”