Three Wisconsin school districts and their locals were honored with NEA-Saturn/UAW Partnership Awards during the NEA Annual Meeting and Representative Assembly in Orlando last week.
Appleton, Stoughton and Waunakee were among six national winners for specialized programs focused on retaining good teachers.
Appleton's Teacher Induction Program is a joint cooperation between the Appleton Education Association and the Appleton Area School District and provides three years of structured support for new teachers by pairing them with trained mentors with similar teaching experiences.
The program has three main components: an orientation to welcome new teachers to the district, a seminar series on the Wisconsin teacher standards and ongoing instructional and management support to initial educators. Mentors are trained and provided with a sliding three-year stipend that matches the decreasing intensity of support from year one to year three.
Stoughton started working with
the Wisconsin New Teacher Project and a partnership with a consortium of Dane County Schools four years ago. Mentors meet weekly with teaching novices and sit in on two classroom settings each month. A district steering committee meets twice a year to assess how things are going and to suggest how to make any improvements. Waunakee's New Teacher Program is a group effort between the Waunakee Teachers Association and the Waunakee Community School District and provides a New Teacher Advisor mentor in each building. It also offers two resource mentors who are retired teachers working with all first- and second-year teachers in their classrooms. New teachers receive four days of orientation and additional district professional development. All mentors receive ongoing standards-based professional development and are compensated per negotiated contract language. This was the tenth year for the NEA-Saturn/UAW Partnership Awards which aim to demonstrate that a good teacher is behind the wheel of every good classroom. "Sadly, the teacher's apple – the familiar symbol of the education profession – is rapidly turning into an apple turnover: teacher turnover," said NEA President Reg Weaver. "Good teachers need the opportunity – and encouragement – to pursue teaching as a career. The NEA-Saturn/UAW Partnership Awards are a prime example of how collaborative efforts among schools, businesses and communities provide unique programs that foster teacher retention." Posted July 11, 2006 |