Punching the Shark: Why Teacher Retention Beats Recruitment Every Time

 

The Ruckus Report Quick take: Most districts are dumping water into leaky buckets while wondering why they can't fill them. Nate Eklund shows us why we've been solving the wrong problem — and how "punching the shark" creates the workplace conditions that make educators want to stay.

Meet Your Fellow Ruckus Maker Nate Eklund is the founder and CEO of Vital Network, a national organization focused on improving educator retention and well-being through workplace improvements. A former classroom teacher and author of How Was Your Day at School? Improving Dialogue about Teacher Job Satisfaction, Nate brings deep experience and research-backed insight to the conversation on creating sustainable, joyful workplaces for educators everywhere.

Breaking Down the Old Rules 🔨 In this episode, Nate Eklund challenges traditional education paradigms:

Key Insight #1: We Don't Have a Recruitment Problem — We Have a Retention Problem

• What's broken: Districts frantically recruiting new teachers while ignoring why good ones leave

• The shift: Focus on the "leaky bucket" — in Minnesota, there are more licensed teachers NOT teaching than teaching (enough to fill the Vikings stadium)

• Impact: When you fix workplace conditions instead of just hiring more people, you solve the math problem at its source

Key Insight #2: Burnout Isn't a Personal Failing — It's Environmental

• What's broken: Treating burnout as individual weakness ("eat more kale, get more sleep")

• The shift: Recognize burnout as systemic depletion that no amount of self-care can overcome — you can't "kale your way out of your fifth reading curriculum in two years"

• Impact: Leaders stop blaming teachers and start designing better workplace conditions that prevent burnout

Key Insight #3: There Are Two Versions of Every Educator

• What's broken: Accepting that some educators are just "difficult" or "burned out"

• The shift: Understanding that everyone has a "fired up" version and a "deflated" version — external factors determine which one shows up

• Impact: Instead of writing people off, leaders create conditions where the best version of every educator can thrive

Quotable Ruckus "You can dump a lot of water into it and invest a lot of energy getting the water into the bucket, but if the bucket's leaking, you've got a fundamental math problem." – Nate Eklund

Your Do School Different Challenge Ready to implement these ideas? Start here:

1. Tomorrow: Ask yourself: "What external factors are keeping my best educators from showing up as their best selves?"

2. This Month: Survey your staff about workplace conditions — not just morale, but actual day-to-day systems and decision-making processes

3. This Semester: Implement one "Punch the Shark" moment — tackle an uncomfortable workplace issue head-on with your team

Connect & Continue

• 🎯 Get the full episode transcript:.css-j9qmi7{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-flex-direction:row;-ms-flex-direction:row;flex-direction:row;font-weight:700;margin-bottom:1rem;margin-top:2.8rem;width:100%;-webkit-box-pack:start;-ms-flex-pack:start;-webkit-justify-content:start;justify-content:start;padding-left:5rem;}@media only screen and (max-width: 599px){.css-j9qmi7{padding-left:0;-webkit-box-pack:center;-ms-flex-pack:center;-webkit-justify-content:center;justify-content:center;}}.css-j9qmi7 svg{fill:#27292D;}.css-j9qmi7 .eagfbvw0{-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;color:#27292D;}