Each year, new professional educators enter their classrooms full of energy and ready to engage their students in the quest for knowledge and academic success. Yet they soon encounter challenges and obstacles that often discourage and end many promising teachers' careers. To illustrate some of the challenges facing early career teachers, a beginning teacher named Jessica is described here. Jessica's story is a compilation of actual events that early career teachers have shared with the authors of this article. Numerous and varied challenges are presented to early career teachers. To continue in the classroom, these teachers need a strategy for negotiating the issues they face. In this article, the authors propose the Reflective Practitioner Phases (RPP) Model to provide early career teachers a framework for reflection on various issues, which will lead to professional growth and renewal. The RPP Model does not offer a way to avert challenges. Rather, it suggests a cycle of crisis, reflection, growth, and renewal that can aid a teacher in strategically negotiating each challenge. The authors believe that teachers who engage in this reflective process will develop a keener self-awareness, growing assurance that they can navigate unexpected crises with professionalism, and a deeper sense of professional efficacy. Ultimately, this process may contribute to better retention among the nation's early career teaching force, greater professional growth, and positive impact on student learning. (Contains 1 figure.)