New Teacher Checklist: 50+ Tasks for Successful Onboarding
As teacher shortages worsen, it’s certainly cause for celebration when you find a qualified educator excited to join your school community. But you shouldn’t take your foot off the gas if you want them to stick around for the long haul.
In fact, a BambooHR survey found 44% of employees have had regrets about starting their job within the first week. And according to a Teachaway report, 41% of teaching candidates would quit if they didn’t feel they were thoroughly onboarded.
So it’s crucial to be proactive and design a compliant, informative, and welcoming onboarding process. After all, supported teachers are more likely to become tenured teachers who are better equipped to give your students the high-quality education they deserve.
In this article, we’ll cover general onboarding tasks, onboarding advice at the K–12 level, and onboarding ideas for higher education. Combined with BambooHRⓇ, you can leverage these checklists to lighten your administrative load and help your new teachers improve their time-to-productivity while making meaningful connections.
11 Onboarding Tasks for Every New Teacher Checklist
Whether you’re onboarding new teachers at the K–12 or higher education levels, the following tasks can help you inform and prepare them for the classroom while also boosting job satisfaction with benefits and a sense of community:
Teacher-Specific Onboarding
- Give new hires the teacher handbook, school map, and academic calendar.
- Provide an overview of your school’s history, mission, values, and culture, highlighting key traditions, events, and student activities.
- Provide curriculum guides, lesson planning resources, and instructional materials.
- Explain grading policies, assessment methods, and report card procedures.
- Review classroom management policies and behavior management systems.
- Inform new hires of student support services, such as counseling, health services, extracurricular programs, special education programs, English as a Second Language (ESL) programs, and academic advising.
General Onboarding
- Send a welcome packet with documents and forms they must review and sign.
- Add the new teacher to the payroll.
- Set up their elected benefits and retirement plan, if applicable.
- Provide them with applicable technology and credentials and grant access to relevant systems.
- Give them a campus tour, and introduce them to their colleagues.
For a deeper dive into onboarding tasks, onboarding documents, and on-site and virtual orientations, check out our general onboarding checklist.
Advice for Onboarding for K–12 Educators
The following checklist, which includes some examples from The New Teacher Project, can help set K–12 educators up for success in their classroom and the wider school community:
Classroom Setup
- Partner with the parent-teacher association (PTA) to ensure their classroom is stocked with supplies and resources.
- Help the new hire set up their classroom (e.g., arrange furniture, organize materials, decorate).
Policies and Procedures to Review
- Teacher attendance policy
- Dress code for teaching days and professional development days
- Mandatory professional development sessions
- Expectations for communicating with administration, colleagues, and parents
- How to reserve shared resources like computer labs and library spaces
- How to request different types of leave
- How to find a substitute teacher and prepare materials for them
- How to report disciplinary issues with students
- How often they’ll be observed and who will observe and evaluate them
Instructional Guidelines to Provide
- Culturally responsive teaching
- Lesson plan examples from veteran teachers
- Standardized test preparation
- Equitable learning opportunities for students
Students with Disabilities
- Give new teachers access to individualized education programs (IEPs) and 504 plans.
- Explain how new hires can collaborate with special education staff.
Community and Culture
- Host welcome events where new teachers can meet colleagues, students, parents, and PTA members.
- Pair new teachers with experienced mentors to support them throughout their first year.
- Create a support group for new teachers to celebrate achievements and discuss challenges.
- Highlight available support systems such as employee resource groups (ERGs), counseling services, stress management workshops, and mental health resources.
Advice for Onboarding for University Educators
The following checklist, which includes examples from Harvard’s and Berkeley’s onboarding processes, can help your new educators get off to a productive start:
Arrival Planning
- Inform non-local faculty members of housing options and real estate services well in advance of their start date.
- Provide information on childcare options, such as on-campus childcare centers.
- Inform new hires of parking and transportation options, such as types of parking permits and whether your campus offers a shuttle service.
- Share disability resources, and invite new hires to request necessary accommodations for themselves and students in their classes.
Safety on Campus
- Encourage new hires to sign up for emergency alert text messages.
- Explain how to report a crime to campus police.
- Offer resources on safety measures and self-defense.
Policies and Procedures to Review
- Promotion and tenure processes
- Privacy laws regarding students’ education records
- Sexual and gender-based harassment policies
- Tax, reimbursement, and other financial policies
- Social media guidelines
- Cybersecurity expectations
- Grade disputes and academic integrity issues
- Mandatory training based on position, including mandatory reporter training (e.g., the University of Washington requires employees who have direct ongoing contact with students in a supervisory role to complete hazing prevention training under Sam’s Law)
Instructional Guidelines to Provide
- Templates and examples of approved syllabi
- Inclusive teaching and cultural competence
- Best practices for office hours
Research and Grants
- Give a tour of the university library and its research resources, such as interlibrary loans and special collections.
- Provide faculty with parameters for hiring research assistants.
- Review research ethics policies for human subjects, animal subjects, and data management.
- Explain procedures for obtaining Institutional Review Board approval.
- Share information on identifying funding opportunities, preparing grant proposals, and submitting applications.
Community and Culture
- Host networking events, such as faculty mixers, departmental meet-and-greets, and interdisciplinary collaboration sessions to help new educators make connections.
- Highlight ERGs and other diversity resources (e.g., Committee on the Concerns of Women at Harvard).
- Outline mental health support and other work-life balance resources (e.g., UC Berkeley’s perks).
While these checklists aren't exhaustive, they can serve as inspiration when creating your onboarding strategy. Be sure to tailor these examples based on your school’s expectations and unique culture to set your people up for success from day one.