28 Bryan Calvert, EdD The intent of RQ3 was to gather qualitative data on the perceived unseen costs associated with teacher turnover as reported by school administrators. The researcher interviewed 12 current school principals from multiple districts serving on both elementary and secondary campuses. The researcher asked the principals a series of open-ended questions pertaining to teacher turnover and their perceptions of the unseen costs that occur when a teacher leaves. The responses were recorded and input into Dedoose, which is a software program that allows researchers to apply codes to data in order to reveal trends and themes. The researcher believed that the participants would be able to provide valuable information on some of the lesser known and lesser documented losses that are associated with teacher turnover. After inputting the transcripts into Dedoose, the researcher assigned several parent and child codes based on common themes found in the participants’ responses. Based on all the coded excerpts, two emerging themes were revealed. The first major theme was time. Many of the perceived unseen losses that occurred dealt with the amount of time administrators spent replacing teachers. The administrators reported that the hiring process took a considerable amount of time and resources and added that many of these hours were spent outside of contractual hours. The second major theme revealed teacher turnover had an impact on professional development. Not only was valuable training lost when a teacher left a district, the principals reported the need to constantly retrain new hires on previous campus initiatives. This was a costly endeavor and prevented the campus from moving forward and gaining a deeper understanding of their work due to the need to revisit foundational work related to the campus initiatives. The results of RQ3 supported the researcher’s belief that there any many unseen costs associated with teacher turnover that negatively impact the campus. Implications The results of RQ1 revealed that there was a positive correlation found between teacher turnover and student achievement. Researchers have stated that teacher turnover is a crisis that hurts student achievement, especially in low-performing schools (Garcia & Weiss, 2019; Ingersoll et al., 2004; Schaefer et al., 2014). The analysis results from RQ1 confirmed the dilemma schools face with high teacher turnover and low student achievement. The analysis revealed that school districts that had higher turnover rates scored lower on standardized tests than schools with a low turnover rate. Extensive research has revealed that teacher turnover negatively impacts test scores, student engagement, school culture, and graduation rates (Fuller et al., 2018; Ingersoll, 2001; Sorensen & Ladd, 2020). School leaders are constantly looking for resources and programs to improve student achievement, but the current study, as well as previous research, suggests that investing resources towards improving teacher retention could be the most successful strategy for improving student outcomes. The results of RQ2 revealed that there was not a strong correlation between the estimated amount of money spent on teacher turnover and the district’s state accountability rating. Based on reviewed literature, this was not the outcome the researcher expected. The intent of RQ2 was to study the relationship between the money spent hiring new teachers and how the state of Texas assigned an A–F score to each school district. Reviewed research consistently showed that the cost of teacher turnover was extremely high and a financial drain on school districts (Barnes et al., 2007; Norton, 1999). Previous studies conducted had attempted to provide a true cost analysis per teacher who left. The results varied in the estimated amount, but all researchers agreed that high costs were involved with teacher turnover and that many of the costs are hidden or unknown (Barnes et al., 2007; Levy et al., 2012; Sorenson & Ladd, 2020; Synar & Maiden, 2012). The results of the RQ2 analysis did not support the hypothesis that there was a relationship between the estimated cost of turnover and the school district’s accountability rating. However, there are several plausible explanations that can account for this. The researcher believes the Texas A–F accountability rating may not provide the most accurate representation of how a school district is performing. Therefore, the correlation analysis might not have been able to determine a positive relationship between the two variables. Regardless of the RQ2 analysis results, it would be beneficial for school leaders at the state and
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