The G.U.T. Check Framework for Teacher Retention Decisions
- emilycrement
- Aug 1, 2025
- 4 min read
In this post, I will describe the overall G.U.T. Check Framework. My intended audience is early career teachers (or teachers new to a school or district) and administrators. Why? Because both share equal responsibility for retention decisions.
Administrators are accountable for providing support, coaching, and opportunities to acquire and practice the skills needed to be successful.
Early career teachers have a reciprocal accountability for demonstrating the skills and capacities that they have been given an opportunity to learn, and for seeking out other learning that is not directly provided by the school.
In this framework, G.U.T. stands for:
G stands for Gather Just-In-Time Evidence
U stands for Use Evidence to Identify Levers for Improvement
T stands for Track the Trajectory of Growth and Improvement
The G.U.T. Check Framework follows the school year calendar from the beginning of the year (late August or early September) to March (when decisions to recommend non-teachers for renewal are made and communicated.) The G.U.T. Check topics are as follows:
Preselection: High Expectations for All Learners
September: Classroom Management:
October: Communicating with Families
October: Adapting Teaching
November: Effective Instructional Practices
January: Data and Assessments
February: Putting it All Together
It is important to keep the pace of the learning curve brisk for two reasons. First, and most bluntly, administrators have to make contract renewal decisions for non-tenured staff members rather quickly. Each year, decisions to renew or non-renew a non-tenured teacher need to be made by late February or early March. As of the time I am writing this post, and the state I am writing it from (Illinois) administrators have three years to decide if a teacher is offered tenured. Once tenure has been offered, the assumption is that the organization will benefit from the teacher deciding to stay put for the remainder of his or her career.
Which takes me to the second reason for a brisk pace of learning. According to a report by McKinsey and Company in 2023, “Almost 40 percent of teachers in districts where most students received free and reduced-price lunches (FRL) said they planned to leave, compared with just 25 percent of teachers in districts where fewer than one in four students received FRL.”
Think about that. In schools where students have access to less resources, and arguably need the best, most competent, most committed teachers, darn near half of those teachers are considering leaving. Whatever their reason for considering leaving, administrators have to eliminate the possibility that one of those reasons is feeling ineffective or not supportive. Administrators have to do everything in their power to ensure that early career teachers are as good as their jobs as possible, as quickly as possible. If 40% of teachers in low-income districts are considering leaving, I would argue that half of them probably don’t feel effective in their roles and it’s wearing them out, and the other half probably should leave. As I said in a previous post, the world needs good realtors, too!
Before each checkpoint, I will share a blog post featuring why that checkpoint is critical to early career success. I will also share a short list of books, articles, and resources that can be used for coaching or self-study.
At each checkpoint, teachers and administrators should also Check for accountability. Jennifer Long, author of Own Up! How to Hold People Accountable Without All the Drama refers to these indicators that show that someone, in this case a teacher or an administrator, is a high performer who is willing to take accountability for outcomes. Accountability for both parties is necessary. According to Jen, we do this by monitoring for these characteristics:
Transparency: How open and honest are you in your communication?
Reliability: Can I count on you to consistently deliver on your commitments?
Willingness: Are you open to new ideas and different approaches?
Urgency: How quickly do you typically address time-sensitive matters?
Drive: What motivates you to achieve your goals as well as organizational goals?
Responsibility: If something went wrong with this, what would your role be in addressing it?
Learning: What steps do you take to continuously improve and grow?
How can one determine whether or not the above characteristics are being demonstrated? For this, I recommend taking a page out of the English Language Arts playbook for character analysis. A colleague, Dr. Dianna Carry, has character analysis down pat. She has developed a curriculum called Thinking Core for teaching this to students. We teach our students, as young as 3rd grade, to ask, “What do the character’s words and actions reveal about their beliefs, attitude or values?” This is what we need to do for each other. We need to explore words and actions so for the “G.U.T. health” of the organization.
If professional development opportunities are offered by the school or district, but a teacher chooses not to attend, what does that reveal about his willingness? His drive? His approach to his own learning?
If an administrator only communicates positive feedback (or fails to communicate feedback at all), but then makes a recommendation for non-renewal, what does that say about her transparency? Her responsibility? Her reliability?
Everyone involved with non-tenured teachers should make every effort to demonstrate each of the above characteristics through their words and actions!
For each checkpoint, I will also include a list of items to be included in a “gift set” for new teachers - kind of like those subscription boxes that come in the mail, but for early career teachers. I recommend having a building leader - be it an administrator or veteran teacher (better yet, both!) host unboxing sessions. These items, and the discussion around them, will help build shared understanding about why each checkpoint is important, and steps that early career teachers can take to improve in their practice.
I hope you find what follows to be clear, motivating, resourceful, and helpful!
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