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“Allison (Luedtke) is a wonderful teacher,” says Appleton mentor
Tricia Kottek (left), “and I’m doing all I can to help keep her a teacher."
By Amanda N. Wegner
Contributing writer
Through the years Teresa Weyenberg might be in her first full year of teaching at Appleton’s McKinley Elementary School, but her relationship with mentor Mary Monroe is nine years in the making. Monroe, a cognitive disabilities teacher at McKinley, first met Weyenberg when Weyenberg was a high school senior, participating in a cooperative program through her school that allowed her to spend part of the school day working. Knowing she wanted to become a special education teacher, Weyenberg was paired with Monroe, who “followed her through the years.” “She had such an impact on me that I wanted to keep up with her,” Monroe said. Keeping up with Weyenberg, an emotional disabilities teacher, is easier now that the two have forged a mentor-mentee relationship within Appleton’s mentoring program. Weyenberg first approached Monroe to ask if she would be her mentor. Though Monroe hadn’t considered adding her name to the mentor pool before, after investigating what it entailed, she gladly signed up. “Once I looked into the program, it really made sense,” Monroe said. “I highly support it.” Pat Marinac, Appleton’s teacher induction program leader, sometimes has to recruit special education mentors. “She is a great resource I can dip into,” Weyenberg said of Monroe. “I can e-mail her, stop in, get ideas, get questions answered. “If it were someone else, I’d be more guarded and wouldn’t have the trust and respect I have for her. That’s important for me.” |
Allison Luedtke doesn’t want to admit it, but she’s having a tough year.
A second-year teacher at Appleton’s Highlands Elementary School, she spent her first year teaching 3rd grade. But last spring, she was reassigned to a split classroom, teaching 4th graders part of the day and 5th graders the rest. She’s had to create new lesson plans and activities, familiarize herself with content appropriate for her new grades, and balance the needs and demands of two pupil groups.
“I feel like I always have a line at my door,” she said. “This year has been a real different situation. I’m learning to manage two grades and it’s challenging.”
But when she has a question, needs inspiration or just needs a break, she can find it two doors down in the classroom of Tricia Kottek, her district-appointed mentor.
“Putting new and veteran teachers together isn’t new,” Kottek said of mentoring, “but we have a program here that works. As veterans, we have a vested interest in the future of education and who sits in front of these young people. And our program (in Appleton) helps ensure more new teachers stay in front.”
The million-dollar question
Appleton is one of several school districts in Wisconsin that has set the bar for new teacher mentor programs. When the state’s new teacher licensing law known as PI 34 was adopted in 2000 it required districts to provide Initial Educators with a mentor. Exactly how districts were to do that wasn’t spelled out, and districts were left to figure it out individually, said Ron Jetty, a WEAC teaching and learning consultant. Now, almost three years after the first wave of initial educators came into state school districts, the Department of Public Instruction is working to clarify aspects of PI 34 – including parameters of mentoring programs – as it has become evident that while some districts “get it,” many more don’t.
When asked what makes for a good mentoring program, Jetty replied: “That’s the million-dollar question. There needed to be more guidance as this issue has evolved, so it’s more clear what school districts are supposed to do. I applaud DPI for its efforts in this area.”
The Appleton Area School District is one district that has figured it out. Last year, Appleton’s mentoring program was awarded the Saturn Mentoring Award. Its collaborative spirit and dedicated support are keys to its success.
In the beginning
When whispers of PI 34 and its mentoring component swept through the district, Pat Marinac did some informal surveys to determine how the district’s 37 schools were fulfilling the needs of new hires. As the science program leader at the time, she was offering new science teachers a bevy of services and information, but her research revealed that was not the case districtwide.
“It was the luck of the draw. What school you were in dictated your level of support,” said Marinac, now the district’s teacher induction program leader. “It was by no means uniform.”
Marinac presented her findings to Lee Allinger, then the district’s assistant superintendent. He directed Marinac to put together a task force, consider the requirements of PI 34, and propose a new program. Allinger, who is now superintendent, has been highly supportive, said Marinac. And for good reason.
Checks and balances Becoming a mentor in the Appleton Area School District is an involved process, and pairing mentor and mentee is not a task that Pat Marinac takes lightly. When entering the program, both mentor and mentee are given the opportunity to share their preferences in a mentor or mentee. For instance, a mentee may want someone in the same building or a veteran teacher with a similar schedule. “We felt it was important for them to provide input on what they were looking for in a mentoring relationship,” said Marinac, Appleton district’s teacher induction program leader. Marinac makes the initial pairings and then goes before the Confirmation Committee, which consists of eight teachers and administrators and Marinac herself, to present her rationale for the pairs. Six affirmative votes are needed to confirm the pair; Marinac does not vote. Because it’s important that the mentor-mentee relationship remains non-evaluative, the committee’s additional input is critical. “It’s a system of checks and balances,” Marinac said. In the past four years, a few pairings have been rearranged, but overall, the system works well, she said. |
“The No. 1 largest investment a school district makes is in its staff,” said Allinger. “Without quality staff, we cannot achieve student success. We need to do everything we can to develop and retain quality staff, and our program is one piece of that.”
For a year, task force members researched best practices, scrutinized examples from other districts and states and learned all they could to create a solid program. In the end, the task force developed a three-prong approach: orientation, the mentoring program and ongoing seminars. With the school board’s approval, the task force broke off into three separate committees to hash out the details.
It was the mentoring committee, Marinac said, that “worked the hardest.”
“We needed to identify the needs of new teachers and build a program around them,” she said. “We wanted to make sure new teachers were supported and mentors were trained and compensated. And we wanted it all to go into contract language.”
Contract language was exactly what they got, as the school board and teachers’ association were fully supportive of the plan. In fact, Jetty said, this is one element that makes the Appleton program a great model.
“They bargained a good cooperative system and have strong contract language,” Jetty said. “That’s one of the biggest things for their program.”
In Appleton, initial educators are paired with a mentor for three years. The mentor, a veteran teacher, must apply to be a mentor, and anyone accepted to the program must complete an intense, two-day training.
The contract provides compensation – a percentage of salary – for serving as a mentor. In the first two years of the relationship, the contract also allows both the mentor and mentee 24 total hours of release time to observe other teachers or attend professional development activities together. There are also regular educational seminars for both mentors and mentees.
Part coach, part cheerleader
A mentor is one part coach – guiding the mentee with questions and activities to help the individual seek answers – and one part cheerleader. Luedtke said Kottek plays both parts well, and she considers Kottek a mentor and a friend. “It’s great knowing I have someone to bounce ideas off, or help me figure out those things that nobody thinks to tell you – like what to do the first time a student throws up in your classroom,” Luedtke said. “It’s a great advantage.”
Kottek is not Luedtke’s first mentor – Luedtke sought a new mentor shortly after beginning her first year of teaching because she and her original mentor were in different schools and Luedtke preferred the convenience of having someone nearby. But Kottek has been instrumental in helping Luedtke navigate the changes and challenges she’s faced in the past year.
For instance, the school district doles out jobs to internal candidates at what they call “arena,” where teachers new and old line up by tenure and choose new jobs as they pop up on a computer screen. Because veteran teachers are trading in their old positions for new ones, arena can occur several times. Kottek went to arena with Luedtke – all three times.
“You just keep going until all the dominoes fall,” Luedtke said. “It’s an emotional roller coaster.”
Once Luedtke secured the 4/5 split class, Kottek stepped up to help her prepare for the switch. Together, the pair took advantage of the release time provided in the contract to observe another split classroom in action.
“Once Allison knew how it was being done, she came back with a much different feeling,” Kottek said. “I know it’s still stressful, but part of my job is to help her find ways to ease that stress. Allison is a wonderful teacher, and I’m doing all I can to help keep her a teacher. That’s part of my job.”
Why it works
Appleton began its new teacher induction program in 2004 – two years before the first wave of initial educators came to the district. With the commencement of the 2006-07 school year, Marinac had graduated her first class of mentor-supported teachers.
Now in its fourth year, Superinten-dent Allinger is pleased with what the program has done for the district. This fall, he had the district’s Human Resources Department examine new teachers to the district in the last five years and assess whether they had stayed in the profession.
“We know new teachers will leave if they don’t feel supported or valued,” Allinger said. “What we found was that new teachers are staying, and very few, if any, flat out left. Some do leave the district because a spouse relocates or the like. I’m feeling good that in AASD, we are giving teachers the support they need to continue and want to continue.”
What makes Appleton’s program work is threefold.
For starters, the level of support from the administration, the school board and the teachers association was instrumental.
“This is not something that can be developed in isolation,” Allinger said. “We needed – and got – the buy-in of everyone.”
Another critical component is having and funding dedicated personnel to run the program, which is Marinac’s job.
“What makes it work,” Kottek said, “is having a paid, dedicated coordinator to oversee things. It’s a full-time job. It’s wonderful that the district saw that need.”
The final component, Allinger said, is that mentors step up themselves, are willing to receive training and receive compensation.
“We haven’t said, ‘Would you like to be a mentor? Great, here you go,’” Allinger said. “It’s involved.”
Staff at all levels realize the value of the program. In fact, Luedtke said she often passes on the insight she gains from Kottek to other teacher friends where mentoring programs are weak or nonexistent.
“I pass on Tricia’s advice a lot, and it’s evident a lot of my friends are struggling,” Luedtke said. “What we have in Appleton is strong.”
OnWEAC Resource Page on Teacher Licensing
Posted November 30, 2007
