Educator Retention and Director Practices in Early Childhood Education Settings

Early childhood education (ECE) educators leave their profession at a rate 14% higher than K-12 educators, resulting in multisystemic issues that affect children, families, staff, and the ECE industry. Research has shown a connection between leadership practices and ECE educator turnover intentions; however, there is limited research on the relationship between the servant-leadership (SL) practices of ECE directors and ECE educators’ turnover intentions. Grounded in Greenleaf’s theory of servant-leadership, the purpose of this quantitative study was to explore the relationship between ECE director SL practices and its seven dimensions, measured using the SL scale, and ECE educator turnover intentions, measured by the turnover intention scale, moderated by years of experience teaching, educational attainment, and race. For this linear regression, 119 participants were recruited from ECE educators in private and public ECE settings within the United States. Results indicated a statistically significant relationship between ECE SL practices and ECE educator turnover intentions (p < .001), with years of experience teaching being the only moderating variable with statistical significance (p = .0238). Results of the multiple regression also indicated a statistically significant relationship between the seven dimensions of SL and ECE educator turnover intentions, with emotional healing being the only statistically significant predictor (p = 0.032). Future research should consider additional moderating variables, such as wages. This study may promote positive social change by providing insight into the connection between leadership behaviors and educators’ turnover intentions, thereby enabling more effective retention efforts.