Stay Interview Question Bank

The conversation that surfaces retention risk before retention becomes a resignation letter.

$47

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Montessori Makers Toolbox

$47

What’s Inside

Working question bank · quarterly use · documentation templates

The Problem This Solves

Most schools learn what their staff actually think about working there during the exit interview, when the information has lost its usefulness.

A long-tenured guide hands in resignation in April, and during the exit conversation the head of school hears for the first time about the workload concerns, the supervisor relationship that had been deteriorating for two years, and the feedback that had been quietly swallowed since the previous fall. The information is honest because there is no longer anything at stake. It is also too late. The leader leaves the conversation with the strong sense that this was preventable, and is correct.

Stay interviews exist to close that gap. Asked quarterly across staff, in a structured format, with questions calibrated to surface concerns while they are still actionable, they produce the signal exit interviews produce too late. The practice is well-established in well-run organizations and almost entirely absent in Montessori schools, despite the unusually high cost of staff turnover in this sector.

The Stay Interview Question Bank gives heads of school the practice in toolkit form. A working question bank of seventy questions across nine domains, calibrated to be used quarterly without becoming repetitive, with documentation templates that turn the conversations into pattern recognition over time. It is the lowest-priced tool in the catalog and one of the highest-leverage.

What’s Included

A complete stay-interview practice in question-bank form.

The bank is structured for quarterly use across the leadership team's relationships with staff. Each domain includes multiple question variants so the practice does not become rote.

Seventy-Question Working Bank

A library of seventy stay-interview questions organized by domain. Includes the well-known questions in the practice and several developed specifically for Montessori school contexts where adult relationships, philosophical alignment, and informal authority are particularly load-bearing.

Nine Question Domains

Organized across nine domains including work conditions, relationships with peers, relationships with supervisor, growth and development, recognition, mission alignment, role clarity, future at the school, and the questions about the school broadly. Built so the leader can sequence questions deliberately rather than asking randomly.

Quarterly Use Calendar

A structured calendar for distributing stay interviews across the year, so each staff member is interviewed once per year, the leadership team's capacity is paced, and the data flows continuously rather than in a single annual burst.

Interview Documentation Templates

Working templates for capturing what was said in the conversation. Built to produce useful pattern data over time without making the documentation feel like it is the point of the meeting.

Pattern Recognition Tool

A working synthesis tool for the head of school or HR lead to identify patterns across stay interviews. What is showing up across multiple staff. What is showing up in specific programs. What is showing up that was not on the leadership team's radar.

Action Translation Framework

A structured way to translate stay interview signal into operational adjustments. Reduces the most common failure mode, which is gathering useful data and then not using it.

Confidentiality and Trust Protocol

The practice notes that make stay interviews actually safe. What is confidential, what is not, what gets shared with whom, and how the practice is positioned with staff so it produces honest responses rather than performative ones.

Who It’s For

Schools that want to know how staff are doing while they can still do something about it.

The tool is for any school where staff turnover carries real cost and where leadership wants better signal on retention before exit interviews surface it. It is small, inexpensive, and disproportionately useful.

Heads of school who have been surprised by recent staff departures
HR leads building or refreshing the school's retention practice
Program directors with direct supervisory relationships across faculty
Schools entering hiring seasons with high retention pressure
Multi-site networks needing calibrated retention practice across campuses
Schools where exit interviews have produced consistently surprising information
Leadership teams committed to the Staff Retention Toolkit and looking for the conversational practice that supports it

How to Use It

Begin with five interviews, not the full staff. Pick five staff members whose retention matters and whose relationship with leadership can support the conversation, run the interviews using the bank, and document the patterns. Once the practice is steady, expand to quarterly rotation across the full team. Trying to launch with the full staff in the first quarter creates pressure that compromises the practice.

Pair with the Staff Retention Toolkit, which addresses the broader practices the interview surfaces issues with, and with the Conflict and Feedback Protocol if interviews surface relational concerns that need a separate intervention.