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:here

• 🔗 Follow Nate Eklund: Twitter

• 🔗 Vital Network: www.vitalnetwork.com

• 🔗 Follow Vital on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/vitalnetwork

• 💪 Join the Ruckus Maker Movement: https://ruckusmakers.club/join

Do you Subscribe to the Ruckus Maker Newsletter? Do School Different 3x a Week. Join for FREE here:here

Today's RUCKUSca