Dr. Sarah Johnson shares why impactful coaching shouldn’t be a matter of luck — and how Teaching Lab and Relay are building a system to support every teacher.
For years, the response to the teacher shortage has been the same: recruit more people. Build more pipelines. Offer more signing bonuses.
But what if the pipeline isn’t actually the problem?
In this episode of Big Ideas That Matter from American University, Dr. Sarah Johnson — President and CEO of Relay Graduate School of Education and Teaching Lab — joins host JuQuay Collyear and fellow educators Dr. Ocheze Joseph and Dr. Eugene Pringle Jr. to challenge the dominant narrative around teacher recruitment, get specific about what actually drives retention, and imagine a bolder future for the profession.
The Luck Problem
Sarah’s message is simple: teachers shouldn’t have to get lucky to receive meaningful coaching and support.
“I use the word lucky really intentionally,” she says. “I think teachers are lucky when they get that support, and it’s generally not systematized.”
She shares her own story — a coach she found by chance in DC who transformed her teaching and kept her in the profession. Without that support, she says, she probably would have left earlier.
Building a System, Not a Pipeline
This is the work at the heart of Teaching Lab and Relay: creating an actual teacher development system where every educator receives high-quality support every year of their career — not by luck, but by design.
“We don’t want any teacher to feel lucky when they get supported like a true professional. We want every single teacher to have a high-impact year of learning every single year of their careers, and that that is a given.”
Listen to the Full Episode
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Episode Guests:
- Dr. Sarah Johnson, President & CEO of Relay Graduate School of Education and Teaching Lab
- Dr. Ocheze Joseph, Director of the Teacher Education Program at American University
- Dr. Eugene Pringle Jr., Associate Director of the EdD Program at American University and creator of the Teaching is Legacy podcast