International Journal of Academic Scientific Research ISSN: 2272-6446 Volume 5, Issue 1 (February - March 2017), PP 237-246 www.ijasrjournal.org www.ijasrjournal.org 237 | Page Influence of School Environmental Characteristics on Retention of Secondary School Teachers in Homa Bay County, Kenya 1 Lazarus Millan Okello*, 1 Manson Sichari, 2 Florence Odera, 1 Department of Educational Psychology and Science, Rongo University, RONGO-KENYA 2 Department of Curriculum Instruction and Media Studies, Rongo University, RONGO-KENYA Corresponding author: Lazarus Millan Okello, PhD Student in Educational Psychology, Department of Educational Psychology and Science, Rongo University,P.O. BOX 103-40404, RONGO-KENYA. E-mail: millan15@yahoo.com Abstract The present study investigated the influence of school environmental characteristics on retention of secondary schoolteachers in Homa Bay County of Kenya.The study adopted an ex-post facto research design.For a population of one thousand eight hundred and one (1801) teachers, according to Krejcie and Morgan (1970) table of specification, three hundred and twenty (320) teachers were recommended to be appropriate and for a population of 295 principals, one hundred and sixty-nine (169) were appropriate.This study used questionnaires as the instrument of data collection. Two sets of questionnaires were used; one for the school principals and another for the teachers.To enhance validity of the instrument, a pilot study was conducted in twenty selected schools in the neighboring Migori County. This involved the ten principals and two teachers from each school.In this study, internal consistency reliability of the instruments was obtained by computing Cronbach’ s alpha (α ) using SPSS and a Cronbach’ s Alpha of α = .705 was reported. Both descriptive and inferential statistics were used in data analysis. The findings indicated that there was a significant fairly moderate, positive correlation between the two variables [r = .463, n=422, p<.05], with high levels of conducive school environment associated with high teacher retention rate.The study recommends that the Teachers Service Commission should develop a strict policy governing teachers transfers that incorporates a term limit of 5-6 years. Keywords: school environmental characteristics, retention, secondary school teachers 1. Introduction The most asset to a learning institution is its teachers, thus retaining them in their stations is essential for any school. Teaching quality globally is the most important schooling input in determination of student achievement given the central role the teacher plays in the education sector. However, it has been observed that teaching is increasingly becoming a profession with the highest flows in and out of schools. This high rate of teacher transfers impacts negatively on schools’ academic achievement s because it disrupts the stability and continuity of teaching (Sass, 2006). Consequently, teachers’ transfers have emer ged as a significant problem affected by school administrator’ s behavior in most institutions of learning. Schools and staffing survey from the Marvel, Lyter, Petrola, Strizek and Morton (2013) provided sufficient argument indicating that appropriately a third of America’ s teachers seek transfer from one institution to the other citing lack of promotion by some administrators, poor