Currently, according to Associate Supt. Dave Bennett, who oversees human resources for the school district, “We only employ the traditional model, which is one experienced teacher assigned to work with each beginning teacher.”

The mentoring assignment is given to experienced teachers as an extra duty on top of their current teaching load, Bennett said.

“A flexible mentor plan would allow us to use a mixture of traditional mentors and non-traditional mentors. These non-traditional mentors would most likely be retired master teachers working in a part-time capacity,” he said, who would be able to work exclusively with beginning teachers in a coaching role.

Lori Stacey, Licensure and Teaching Services coordinator for the school district, told the board during its regular May meeting Thursday that using current teacher-mentors “does not allow for consistent support and guidance that is necessary to keep beginning teachers in the profession.”

Often, Stacey explained, the mentor’s planning period doesn’t align with the mentee’s schedule. If the beginning teacher experiences a crisis during the school day, the teacher is most often not able to get in touch with the mentor for advice or counseling until after the end of the school day.

Full-time teachers who act as mentors, Stacey said, are also not able to demonstrate model lessons for the beginning teacher and are not able to cover the beginning teachers’ classrooms to offer help with classroom issues.

The plan she presented to the school board offers various options for providing full-time mentors, including contracting with retired teachers or using highly qualified current teachers as mentor coaches who do not have classroom duties.

The mentors must be accomplished teachers, have successfully completed mentor training within the past three years or be willing to go take a refresher course, have a record of excellent teaching and have the recommendation of two former administrators who supervised them as teachers.

The mentors would then observe beginning teachers assigned to them, provide feedback and model lessons, cover the mentee’s classroom periodically, and provide feedback to the beginning teachers.

Stacey said that teacher-mentor funds are allocated from the state in conjunction with local monies and those funds could be used for the full-time mentor positions

The school board took no action on the proposed mentor plan. Stacey and Bennett will continue working on the details and return to the board at a future date.