When Peggy Walker started her teaching career more than 30 years ago, she was hired two days after the school year started, and she didn't have a classroom, a desk or even a place to put her purse.

"If another teacher hadn't taken me under her wing, I am not sure what I would have done," Walker said. "New hires were just kind of thrown to the wind. It was sink or swim – if you didn't make informal contacts on your own, you were probably going to sink."

Today, all Wisconsin public school districts are required to have mentoring programs. The requirement is part of the licensure system for teachers under PI 34, the comprehensive law that has changed the way Wisconsin's public school teachers get and keep their licenses.

Walker's district of Stoughton is one of three Wisconsin districts' new teacher programs that were honored with NEA-Saturn/UAW Partnership Awards on June 29, during June pre-events to the NEA Annual Meeting and Representative Assembly in Orlando. The award is a joint award to a district and its local, and only six programs throughout the country won the award this year. Waunakee and Appleton also received awards in Wisconsin.

After returning from Orlando, winners revealed to WEAC some of their secrets to running successful new teacher programs.

How many mentors work best?

Stoughton's one-year program has one half-time mentor who works directly with all new teachers, who are new to the profession. (Teachers who transfer from other schools have a separate induction program.)

The mentor is a different teacher every year and undergoes extensive training (at district expense) prior to the start of the school year on topics such as confidentiality, how to look at test scores, and how to redesign instruction.

Walker believes that Stoughton's release model, which has a mentor in the classroom with the new teachers, is what drew attention from judges.

"Having the mentor in the class observing is so important," said Walker, a learning disabilities teacher at Sandhill Elementary. "It's like reading the sports page on Monday morning about how the Packers played on Sunday compared to actually being at the game yourself. There is quite a difference in talking about teaching and doing the teaching."

Appleton's program has many mentors - one for each new teacher.

"We spend a lot of time matching the right mentor with the right new teacher," said Noelle Mudrak, president of Appleton Education Association. "We want the match to make sense. The mentor should have direct experience dealing with the field or (grade) level of the new teacher."

Bargaining makes or breaks new teacher programs

New teacher programs are one the few things you can point to where it's win-win for everyone - especially students, winners agreed.

"If we can put aside barriers in bargaining, we can improve things for every one," said Walker.

"New teachers get a deeper grasp of the craft more quickly and students benefit."

During the bargaining process, it's critical to be specific about how new teachers will be evaluated and who will be privy to any evaluations, Walker said.

In Stoughton, no data is given to the principal. For example, the new teacher may ask the mentor to take tallies of how often they call on girls vs. boys to find out if there could possibly be any unknown imbalances.

"We want the mentor and new teacher relationship to have confidentiality," Walker said. "The mentor also does not evaluate. They just look at data together and say, 'What do you think?' Data from the classroom can not be used against the new teacher."

Stoughton's program also requires that the mentor only be halftime so that the mentor can remain teaching their own classes as well.

"If we do need another mentor, then we would have another half-time person," Walker said. "We didn't want a full-time mentor who would be removed from their own classroom and all the ongoing challenges. We wanted them to be experiencing the same daily life as the new teachers."

Paying mentors?

Appleton mentors receive a stipend, which is a percentage of their base pay.

"The stipend was very important because mentors commit a great deal of their time to working with new teachers - so compensation was a critical factor in negotiating," Noelle said.

Stoughton's mentor does not receive a stipend, but does receive high-level training at no cost to the mentor because it's part of the district's budget.

Teacher turnover

Because of the high rate of teacher turnover, this year's NEA-Saturn/UAW Partnership Awards focused on exemplary new teacher programs. Some 20 percent of all new hires leave the classroom within three years because they feel overwhelmed. Many say they feel unsupported in their classrooms.

Most new teacher programs are too new to have enough data to categorically show whether they are working to retain teachers and prevent unnecessary turnover, but Mudrak believes they are working.

"Our mentor trainer tracks the numbers, but this is only the start of our second full year so we don't have enough time in yet – but the numbers look good," Mudrak said. "If teachers have left, it's for reasons such as a spouse who needs to move for another job."

Noelle blames the QEO for contributing to high turnover rates.

"We, as teachers, struggle on a daily basis to get respect for what we do," she said. "Now the QEO has been on us for so long that teachers leave not because of performance, but because they not only don't get respect, they also don't get the compensation that they thought they would eventually move up to."

How to get started on the right foot

Stoughton administrators and teacher representatives attended training together on what quality mentor programing looks like before developing their own new teacher program.

"Going to an introduction together was key to success," Walker said. "We needed to be on the same page, and that helped us work out language issues. For example, what does 'collaborative coaching' mean? What does 'confidential' mean - that you won't tell anyone, or you won't tell the principal or a supervisor?"

Appleton's Mudrak, a 12th-year teacher at Horizons Elementary, credits the success of the Appleton program in part to the positive working relationship between the association and administration.

Appleton Assistant Superintendent for School Services Lee Allinger and Superintendent Thomas Scullen attended the June 29 NEA reception in Orlando with Mudrak and AEA vice president Julie Coley, who teaches at Houdini Elementary.

"I can pick up the phone at any time and talk to an assistant superintendent or even the superintendent," Mudrak said. "We may disagree on some things, but we find a way to keep the lines of communication open."

Winners also suggests following aspects of the New Teacher Center Induction Model, which is based on nearly two decades of data on about 2,500 first- and second-year teachers in the University of California, Santa Cruz, area. The New Teacher Center offers online resources, professional development and consulting services.

Posted July 25, 2006