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By Amanda N. Wegner
Contributing writer
Small school districts offer a distinct set of benefits – and face a distinct set of challenges. Declining enrollments and dwindling resources make it especially difficult for them to continue to provide a strong education for students and support for staff.
The term “strength in numbers” has taken on new meaning for smaller school districts. The Oconto Falls School District – along with partner districts in Oconto, Coleman, Lena and Peshtigo – are living that mantra, especially in relation to implementation of the state’s teacher licensing requirements known as PI 34.
These five school districts, which serve around 5,200 total students, ranging in student population from 400 to 1,950, have formed a consortium to administer the pieces of PI 34’s new teacher induction puzzle, including mentoring, support seminars and other training. Led by Candie Lehto, Oconto Fall’s assistant superintendent, the group approach has afforded these five districts opportunities they wouldn’t have on their own.
Oconto Falls is another school district that has been recognized for its quality teacher induction program. As a whole, the consortium is much smaller than the districts featured in other recent OnWEAC In Print articles about mentoring programs, and the consortium’s experience provides insight into how small districts can adhere to and succeed in the arena.
Their experience also highlights some of the challenges of implementing requirements of PI 34, especially in the area of collective bargaining. While teachers in these five districts strongly support the concept of the consortium mentoring program, they believe details need to be bargained collectively, to help ensure the program’s long-term success and to protect the rights of all involved.
Currently, just two of the five districts involved in the consortium contractually provide for facets of the program or compensation, but teachers in all of the districts are hopeful they can eventually generate and bargain appropriate language (see sidebar below).
Meanwhile, the mentoring program continues in these five northeastern Wisconsin districts, and all involved are committed to making it work.
Started early
Oconto Falls joined forces with Oconto and Peshtigo to begin a mentoring program well before PI 34 mandated that Initial Educators be paired with veteran teachers. Starting first as a “buddy system,” untrained mentors were made available for mentees, and after-school enrichment seminars were “hit or miss.” The Lena and Coleman districts, which are the two smallest of the five consortium districts and both overseen by the same superintendent, Robert Werley, joined in later. When whispers of PI 34 began circulating, Lehto decided to infuse the program with some formality, including mentor training, support seminars and a year-end congratulatory banquet. Lehto estimates that started two years before PI 34 was put in action.
While the orientation programs and social activities are district-driven, other aspects of the teacher induction program are shared.
The program helps ensure that new teachers – and mentors – have the resources they need to stay energized and excited about teaching, feel valued and do the best jobs they can.
“Starting new is hard. It’s hard every single day,” Lehto said of the need for districts to have a formal mentoring program. “I tell a story about my first year: If I would not have left that school and found another, I would have been a statistic. I didn’t know how to buy a lunch ticket and felt very ostracized with all the cliques and groups. Being a new teacher – and a mentor – can be difficult, that’s part of the impetus. We hire them because they’re good. We don’t want to lose them because we neglected to take care of them. Good care counts.”
 Laurie Karnopp |
Lacking the guidance of a mentor, Laurie Karnopp, an elementary music teacher in Oconto Falls, did leave the profession many years ago, quitting after just one year of teaching. She said it took her three or four years to decide to give it another try, and is now in her thirteenth year in the district.
“There are so many issues – all the extras that go in with teaching – that having a mentor is huge,” said Karnopp, who mentors another elementary music teacher in the district, Melody Kostreva. “I don’t think I would have quit if I had had someone helping me. I feel (a mentor program) is very valuable. The stress is very high, and our job is to help alleviate that.”
Though Kostreva did her student teaching and had a long-term substitute job in the Oconto Falls district, being paired with Karnopp, she said, has made her first year less stressful.
“There are so many things (to know) about teaching, and learning from another individual in that same setting is very helpful. If I had to find or do it all on my own, it would take time away from my role as a teacher and I wouldn’t have the opportunity to get or work through ideas with someone who’s been there before,” Kostreva said.
Careful matching
In the consortium, for the sake of logistics, mentors stay within their home district. Administrators set the mentor-mentee pairs, typically basing the match on grade level or department.
Administrators then approach potential mentors to ask them to take on the incoming teacher; if a veteran teacher agrees and is new to mentoring, he or she receives training and is compensated for his or her time. All new teachers are paired with a mentor, regardless of experience. The program currently spans just one year; Lehto is exploring the possibility of adding a second year.
While mentors do receive a stipend for their service, that total is dependent on the number of support seminars they attend with their mentee. The total is prorated if a mentor is not able to attend a seminar.
Lehto said teachers new and old enjoy the support seminars, as they offer something for everyone.
“Veteran teachers learn just as much,” Karnopp said. “It is programmed for both.”
If a mentor cannot attend, the mentee is encouraged to find another mentor for the day.
“That was a serendipity moment,” Lehto said. “We figured that if a mentor couldn’t come, neither would the mentee. So we started asking and encouraging mentors to find a substitute in case they couldn’t come. For the mentee, that gives them an ally, someone to talk to. It has really worked out.”
Support seminars are an integral part of the consortium’s induction program, and the area that offers the greatest opportunity for shared support. All after-school seminars are held in Oconto, which is the relative central point for the other four schools. The districts split costs – whether it’s for books, food, a speaker or other resources – and work together before each new school year to determine what worked, what didn’t and what additional information and resources new teachers need and what information and resources each district is able to contribute.
“We are absolutely thrilled to be part of such a group,” said Sarah Croney, superintendent of Oconto schools. “This is a great approach for districts like us, where the administrators don’t have any time because they wear so many hats.”
Though mentor-mentee pairs are forged in-district, this sharing among the five districts serves the mentoring aspect of the program well. Because small districts aren’t hiring many new teachers each year, by bringing together new teachers from all five districts, these new educators are better able to find an ally in their field or grade level.
“Whom do you talk to if you’re the only one in your specialty in your district? That’s a difficulty in a small district. One year ago, we had two new ag teachers in the consortium,” Lehto said. “They got to talk to one another and share ideas. That wouldn’t have happened if we all stayed in our own back yard.”
In addition to sharing with one another, the consortium has also utilized and traded services with CESA 8.
“We are all interdependent, and that’s a good thing,” said Bob Kellogg, CESA 8 administrator. “These smaller districts really struggle, and for all of us to partner together is a great thing. These districts are looking outside their own boundaries to get quality information, resources and programs that they could not get or do on their own.”
Making it work
As CESA 8 serves primarily small districts – and some very small – Kellogg knows well the strain that requirements, such as those outlined in PI 34, can put on them. But a consortium spreads out the wealth and responsibility, drawing on strengths and resources of each member.
“The consortium works so well, because it doesn’t depend on the resources of one district,” Kellogg said. “Each person throws in his or her own thoughts; if it was just one person, you might not get it all. Here, you get a cross-section, you get that conversation.”
By having several people and districts working on and participating in the program, it keeps it on top of the mind, added Kellogg.
“If you’re doing it as a consortium, it prevents it from being a just another state mandate,” Kellogg said. “By having others working with you, it helps keep it on the front burner, particularly in a small district where one administrator wears all the hats. Having shared responsibility leads to a better opportunity to make sure it occurs.”
Although Lehto serves as the lead for the consortium’s program, Croney emphasizes the need for all districts in a similar group to come to the table and participate in the process.
In the end, the consortium works, Croney emphasized, because all the districts are leveraging their assets, coming to the table to participate in the process when it comes to giving the mentoring program its form.
“We make this work because we are a team,” Croney said. “Some are able to contribute more than others, but it’s really vital that we are in this together. It’s really for the future of the profession.”
* * *
PI 34 contract language very important
One of the key issues surrounding the northeast Wisconsin consortium’s mentoring program – and it is an important issue in development of all mentoring programs – is incorporation of appropriate language in the teachers’ contract.
Currently, just two of the consortium’s five districts contractually provide for facets of the program or compensation. Part of that can be attributed to a “disconnect” between PI 34’s intention and how districts are interpreting the law, said Kim Plaunt, UniServ director, United Northeast Educators. Although she believes the intent of
PI 34 was to have the district and teachers work together to develop mentor programs – and explore new ways to compensate Initial Educators on different or modified pay scales – the law does not specifically state that districts must work collaboratively with teachers or that any of PI 34 provisions need to be incorporated into the collective bargaining agreement. This gray area can make for a touchy situation. In fact, in one district, the negotiations team was told the district can comply with the new law without making changes to the collective bargaining agreement.
“In Oconto, Coleman and Lena, there are open discussions about PI 34 and its implementation at the bargaining tables,” Plaunt said. “In Peshtigo and Oconto Falls, there is compliance with PI 34 and there may be great mentoring programs taking place, but there continues to be a disconnect and little collaborative effort between the district and bargaining team.”
In the districts where the bargaining teams are involved, all parties are still dealing with unknowns. This leaves negotiators to take a wait-and-see approach.
“I think PI 34 can work,” said Kris Broderick, chief negotiator for the Coleman Education Association, who recently helped add mentor language to the district’s contract, “but it needs to be looked at as a work in progress. At this point, there seems to be too many unknowns.”
“The biggest problem is negotiating the unseen,” echoed Russ Young, chief negotiator for the Oconto Teachers Education Association.
The Lena district has just bargained mentoring language into its contract. As a very small district, a roadblock facing chief negotiator Chad Misco is not having comparably sized districts to look to as examples.
Coleman’s contract provides a stipend for mentors, equal to 2% of their base salary the first year and dropping to 1% the second year. Mentor-teachers also receive release time from their teaching duties for up to four half-days to observe their mentee. Coleman also has an alternative salary scale that works off the district’s current scale to compensate Initial Educators.
To help facilitate the process, Broderick and another member of the bargaining team, Karl Peters, made a presentation to the Coleman school board. Peters, along with his mentee, told the board members of the work they do together, the hours spent in the mentoring relationship, and how valuable the arrangement is.
“That was really vital to their understanding,” Broderick said. “It was like, ‘Hey, now I get it.’ ”
Coleman’s contract language sunsets on June 30, 2009. “We don’t believe that is a bad thing,” Broderick said. “We can then work out the kinks. We look at it as a work in progress.”
Bargainers agree that absence of contract language regarding PI 34-required mentoring programs could lead to problems down the road. “Do I think having contract language is important? Absolutely,” Young said. “We want to make sure we protect ourselves and our teachers and mentors. But before we start, we need to know the rules.”
To assist negotiation teams craft appropriate contract language, WEAC offers model language. It is available from the WEAC Collective Bargaining Division at 800-362-8034, extension 205.
Some of the topics and information to include in contract language regarding mentoring include:
Posted May 1, 2008