Turnover doesn’t just drain a district’s budget, it drains trust, momentum, and student support. We talk with Lisa Steele and Dr. Brian Keefer from Fulton County Schools about a different way to approach the problem: build a clear, incentive-based professional learning pathway that helps people see a future inside the organization.

We walk through Level Up Fulton, a three-tier professional development model designed for every employee, from school leaders to classified staff. Level One anchors people in district values and shared language through tools like CliftonStrengths. Level Two gets role-specific with meaningful problems of practice and portfolio-based evidence so learning shows up in daily work. Level Three offers distinct paths that expand leadership capacity at scale, including executive coaching training, high-quality professional learning design, and leadership academy programs for aspiring principals, assistant principals, instructional coaches, and non-instructional leaders.

The results are the headline, but the design choices are the real lesson. We dig into how Fulton uses employee feedback to refine the program, why marketing matters for participation, and how “building the bench” reduces the need to recruit leaders from outside. We also share practical ideas smaller districts can use immediately by tapping internal experts and creating simple, structured growth paths.

If you care about teacher retention, principal retention, leadership development, and professional learning that actually changes outcomes, this conversation offers a blueprint worth stealing. Subscribe, share with a colleague, and leave a review with the one retention challenge you want solved next.