Reversing the Turnover–Trust Spiral: Teacher-Led PD and Community Showcases Sustain a School-University Partnership

• In Event: Bridging Institutions, Building Futures: School–University Partnerships for Sustainable K–12 CS Education

Abstract

Objective
This study draws on an NSF-funded, decade-long Research–Practice Partnership (RPP) uniting one of the largest districts in the Northeastern U.S. with universities to support the rollout of CS modules in 26 elementary schools, reaching more than 10,000 students. We ask how educator and leadership turnover has threatened the sustainability of a large-scale equity-centered CSforALL initiative, and how teacher-led professional development and community showcases have helped rebuild trust, capacity, and buy-in to sustain school-university partnerships.

Theoretical Framework
Building on our earlier Turnover–Trust model—which showed how successive staffing exits erode relational trust, impact knowledge sharing, and slow CS/CT diffusion within RPPs—we integrate three bodies of literature to explore possible remedies. These include (a) RPP studies of capacity-building and leadership alignment (Dettori et al., 2018; Bevan et al., 2019); (b) turnover-trust research mapping how personnel changes fracture collaboration (Kochanek et al., 2020; Arce-Trigatti et al., 2024); and (c) grounded-theory methodology with constant comparison (Charmaz, 2014). This paper highlights how two RPP variables—Professional Development (PD) and District-Wide CSforALL Community Showcase—mitigated turnover consequences and eroded trust while supporting trust rebuilding, CSforALL implementation, and RPP sustainability.

Methods
Using primarily qualitative methods, we conducted 60-minute semi-structured interviews and 90-minute focus groups with more than 40 stakeholders across the project span—researchers, project administrators, cohort-lead teachers, principals, and the district's central leader—across four elementary-school cohorts. We analyzed transcripts through Braun & Clarke's six-step thematic analysis to identify patterns of trust erosion and repair. Descriptive statistics (counts, percentages) from PD attendance logs, survey responses, and showcase participation numbers provided contextual triangulation, offering a comprehensive portrait of diffusion and sustainability dynamics.

Data Source
Data sources include:
Interviews and focus groups with over 40 project members.
Field notes, artifacts, 100+ post-PD surveys from six PD sessions.
Observation notes and survey from the 2025 CSforALL Showcase attended by 400+ community members.

Result/Conclusion
While the data analysis is still in process, early findings show the Interactive Professional Development and the District-Wide CSforALL Showcase successfully countered the disruptive Turnover–Trust Spiral by reinvesting directly into teachers, classrooms, and community. Six teacher-codesigned PD cycles, replicated by school leaders in more than 30 elementary sites, rebuilt instructional capacity and demonstrated that expertise resides with practitioners, not departing administrators. Simultaneously, the 2025 Showcase—drawing more than 400 families and all district leaders—made student creations and teachers' collective efficacy vividly public, restoring confidence in the initiative's trajectory. These interconnected forums transformed vulnerability into momentum, creating new relational ties and broad stakeholder buy-in that survived leadership changes. The complete analysis will finish by AERA 2026.

Significance
This study advances RPP scholarship by moving beyond diagnosing turnover-induced trust erosion to empirically identifying practitioner- and community-driven renewal mechanisms that restore collaboration at scale. By integrating grounded-theory analysis with participation metrics, we demonstrate how teacher-led PD and public showcases operate as mutually reinforcing "social-capital intensifiers," offering a transferable blueprint for sustaining equity-centered CS/CT initiatives amid leadership changes. The findings refine theoretical models of trust, inform practical design of resilient partnerships, and broaden evidence for scalable, community-anchored diffusion strategies.

Authors

• Sneha Veeragoudar, University of Massachusetts - Amherst

• Keisha L. Green, University of Massachusetts - Amherst