Faculty, High turnover rates affect diverse professional areas. Recruiting and training new employees is costly for profit and non-profit organizations. However, turnover in the teaching career costs quality and effectiveness in schools, in addition to the financial cost of over $7.3 billion per year (Carroll, 2007). Money that could be used towards other improvements in education ends up going to the cycle of recruiting and losing professionals. American schools are facing a major challenge in keeping teachers (Carroll, 2007; Kopkowski, 2008), and North Carolina is not left behind in the struggles to retain teachers. The 2011-2012 teacher turnover rate for North Carolina was 12.13%, and the Mecklenburg turnover rate was 14.46% (Teacher Turnover Report, 2012). Although some of those teachers are retiring, there are also teachers who leave the profession for reasons that can be addressed in their first years, which would encourage them to continue teaching. Some of beginning teachers’ needs are socialization with other beginning teachers and peers (Womack-Wynne, Dees, Leech, LaPlant, Brockmeier, and Gibson, 2011; Kopkowisk, 2008), social relationships with parents and community (Cooper, and Stewart, 2009), advancement of teaching knowledge (Carroll, 2007), resources such as tools and technologies (Cooper, and Stewart, 2009) and professional development (Johnson and Cardos, 2002). A way to address beginning teachers needs and concerns is to create a support network and learning community through induction programs.
