First Questions: On Teacher Recruitment
There is a question sitting beneath almost every strategic conversation I hear happening in Christian schools right now. It surfaces in board meetings, in hiring cycles that stretch too long, in resignation letters that arrive too soon. It is the question of people — specifically, whether your school can find, form, and keep the kind of teachers who make everything else possible.
Ask any head of school what keeps them up at night, and the answer rarely starts with curriculum or facilities or even finances. It starts with people. The question is only becoming more acute as Gen Z brings a different set of expectations, a shorter default tenure, and a finely tuned instinct for whether an institution actually lives what it claims to believe.
What follows is the next in our series of reflections on how our foundational “first question” can help us face the modern challenges in Christian schools. The first post explored what artificial intelligence might mean for our schools; this one turns to a question no technology can answer: what does it take to build a school where the best teachers come, and they want to stay?
In that earlier post, we proposed a question that might continually direct us to our true calling: What does faithfully forming students in the image of God require of us? Our challenge, as a network and in the countless decisions we make daily, was to keep asking: How will this decision help or hinder our students’ growth in the image of God? It seems to me this same question is essential as we work to attract and retain the very best faculty — the lifeblood of our schools.
To think through it, I wanted to see what an ancient thinker might say about this complex, modern problem. It is, after all, the summer of Homer’s The Odyssey, right?
Aristotle, the fourth-century BC philosopher who gave us the concept of eudaimonia, or human flourishing, turns out to have some timeless insight. I first encountered Aristotle as a freshman in college, having unknowingly enrolled at a liberal arts university. That is a story for another time, but for now, suffice it to say that God was good to put me in that Philosophy 101 course. So much of how I think about my life, my faith, and my career traces back to “Gen Ed” requirements I would never have chosen on my own.
Throughout my 25 years in education, I’ve watched Aristotle’s thinking reverberate through Christian thought again and again. And relevant to this piece, it turns out those ancient ideas have a great deal to say about retention strategy, institutional culture, and what Gen Z is actually looking for in a career. Aristotle’s central claim — that human beings flourish not in isolation but in communities ordered toward a genuine good — is one Christian schools are, at their best, uniquely positioned to embody, if we return to the right first question as we build such a place.
What follows is an invitation, in four parts, to think more deeply about the conditions your school creates for your teachers, and ultimately, through them, for your students. Faithfully forming students in the image of God requires us to make sure the people carrying out that mission daily are thriving — personally, professionally, spiritually. When we get that right, the KPIs tend to follow. So even if ancient philosophers aren’t your thing, stick with me as we consider how to embody the call we’ve been given.
Part One: On the Purpose of the School Itself
To shed light on our topic, Aristotle would insist we begin with telos, or the end goal. He opens the Nicomachean Ethics with the claim that “every art and every inquiry, and similarly every action and pursuit, is thought to aim at some good.”[1] Those of us called to Christian schools know we are not merely transmitting information; we are forming human beings toward a vision of the good life. The Westminster Shorter Catechism puts it directly: the chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy him forever. Aristotle, I think, would put it his own way: be clear about what kind of person you’re trying to produce, because that determines what kind of teacher you need.
Contemporary researchers back this up. Terrence Deal and Kent Peterson argue that schools with a clearly articulated sense of purpose develop what they call a “sacred” institutional identity, one that draws mission-aligned educators and holds them together.[2] Christian educator David Smith goes further in On Christian Teaching (2018), arguing that clarity about formation — not just instruction — is what actually distinguishes genuinely Christian schooling.[3] A school confused about its telos will attract confused teachers, and confused teachers will, in turn, produce confused students.
This has always mattered, but it matters profoundly for the generation now entering the profession. Three-quarters of Gen Z scrutinize a potential employer’s societal impact before applying, which makes values alignment a practical hiring consideration rather than a nice-to-have. Eighty-one percent prioritize transparency and honesty at work, and 44% say they’d turn down an employer over a perceived gap between stated and lived values.[4] For Christian schools, I think that cuts both ways: a school with a genuinely coherent, lived mission has a real competitive advantage, but one that merely performs its values will be seen through immediately by a generation that has made a habit of spotting the difference.Aristotle’s telos, Deal and Peterson’s institutional identity, and the experience of leaders navigating this in real schools right now all point to the same conclusion. Hiring goes far beyond an HR function; it is primarily, and vitally, a function of your mission.
At Central Christian School in St. Louis, Missouri, Head of School Christan Perona knows that in a small school, mission fit is everything. Her faculty and staff know and live the mission daily, and it is the foundation of hiring new faculty. She shares,
“Hiring mission-fit candidates begins with understanding our school accurately. Being honest with who we are and who we are not is critical, and conveying that identity is important – even in job posts. After listing desired qualifications and job responsibilities, we also share our mission and vision to clearly articulate who we are and where we’re going. It allows candidates to know – even before completing an application – if they hold similar convictions and want to join us in our pursuits.
Our Portrait of a Graduate identifies aspirations we have for Central students, but we also want our teachers to reflect these traits, too. As we authentically lean into our school’s distinctives and desired outcomes for students in the interview process, we can discern if a candidate’s passions align with our school. Do they truly understand their need for Jesus? Do they want their teaching to influence the whole-child – mind, body, and spirit? Do they think and act redemptively?
When hiring, I first look for culture fit, humility, and coachability. ”
At Grace Community School in Tyler, Texas, their core values are lived out and deeply ingrained within the philosophy and practice of the school in most every way. Recruiting faculty relies on the hiring team’s belief in the core values and their ability to discern if those values are modeled in applicants.
In a conversation with Head of School Jay Ferguson, their hiring begins with their why. He shares,
“What is the Christocentric reason for our existence, and what is it that we’re trying to accomplish? What is our vision, our direction, and where are we heading in this season? Because our mission is to “assist, or come alongside Christian parents in educating, equipping, and encouraging their children to influence the world for Christ”, we want people who first have a deep, abiding relationship in Jesus as well as being top-notch educators. We want people who have the mindset that their role is to help parents, perhaps even doing some equipping of parents themselves, and not replacing the parents. We want teachers who see parents as allies, friends, and partners, not as adversaries. We also want teachers who see their roles as disciple-makers, committed to forming the heart and hands of our students, as well as their heads. Those are some of the implications of our mission and core values.”
What that means in practice at Grace is that the interview process really does focus on the candidate’s Christian character, who they are in Jesus, as much as it does on content mastery. Interview teams ask questions specifically designed around core values, such as “Tell me about a time you failed at something professionally, what you’ve learned from it, and how it’s formed your practice,” and “What do you think it means to ‘love all of God’s children’ in the context of Christian education?”
In the final interview with the head of school, culture fit is the focus, with discussion surrounding the candidate’s faith history and his or her current philosophy of education. They explain that Christian schooling is something completely different, perhaps from any past teaching experience they’ve had (particularly if they haven’t taught in a Christian school before). In this interview, the candidate experiences the whole process of helping a teacher educate Christianly–beginning with the metanarrative and fundamental doctrines of Scripture, then layering on a biblical philosophy of education, and finishing with the application to biblically integrated lesson plans, units, pedagogy, discipline, and relationships. At Grace, they want the candidate to at least have an understanding and assent that what they are doing is probably a whole new thing, something we’re very serious and intentional about, and that they are willing (and, in fact, excited) to open their minds to something different that God wants to do in and through them.
The Christian schools that thrive in this era will be the ones whose leadership did the internal work first, that is, naming, with precision and shared conviction, the kind of human being they are trying to form, and then translating that vision into the actual language of hiring: job descriptions, interview questions, candidate discernment, onboarding. They will have built a culture coherent enough that the right people recognize themselves in it.
This is important for so many reasons, and most of them are related to our foundational and Biblical integrity. Add to that the reality that Gen Z is watching. They’re looking for institutions that mean what they say, and they’re remarkably good at telling the difference. For Christian schools, that’s an invitation to be exactly what we’ve always claimed to be.
So as we begin a new school year, the work of clarifying your telos, aligning your people around it, and building the systems that make the vision real is the essential, ongoing discipline of school leadership. Maybe the most important thing a head of school can do is refuse to let hiring season arrive before that work is done.
Next up, we will explore how Aristotle might contribute to a discussion about the compensation and credentials of teachers.
Read all of the CESA blogs here.
[1] Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, Book I, Chapter 1.
[2] Terrence Deal and Kent Peterson, Shaping School Culture (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2009).
[3] David Smith, On Christian Teaching: Practicing Faith in the Classroom (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2018).
[4] Randstad, Gen Z Workplace Blueprint: Future Focused, Fast Moving (2025). Survey of 11,250 workers across 15 markets.
Dr. Katie Wiens, Executive Director of CESA
Katie Wiens played a role in CESA’s founding and served as its original Director of Academic Advancement. In that position, Katie co-wrote the original CESA standards and helped develop the initial institutional review process. She also played a major role in organizing the early CESA symposia and heads retreats.
She has served on the faculties of Wheaton College, Boston University, Gordon College, and Kennesaw State University, and currently teaches in graduate programs at Baylor University and Taylor University. She also serves as Fellow with the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture at the University of Virginia, is a Research Fellow with Cardus, and is a research scholar at Baylor’s Center for School Leadership.
Katie also has extensive experience in K-12 Christian schooling, having served as an administrator and faculty at several private Christian schools. She has her bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of St. Thomas, and her doctorate from Boston University.
CESA Partner Spotlight
Empowering Christian Schools to Lead, Grow, and Thrive with Purpose
NextEd partners with Christian schools through leadership recruitment, strategic planning, governance, and organizational development. Guided by experienced school leaders, we help boards and heads build clarity, strengthen culture, and move confidently toward what’s next.