Written by: Seth Gordon, Newberg Graphic

Newberg School District revives support program for new teachers

Since becoming Newberg School District’s director of professional development, teaching and learning last year, Stafford Boyd has received a clear message from district teachers.

Whether it was through staff responses in the district’s school climate and culture survey over the past two years or directly from the team of teachers formed last year to help guide professional development in the district, Boyd was told that reinstituting a mentor teacher program was a top priority.

“First, it really provides support for first-year teachers that they don’t get and haven’t been getting,” Boyd said. “It’s a really challenging circumstance. It’s also really a culture builder. If teachers that are new to our system feel well supported, that speaks loudly for us as a district and a community.”

The district’s previous mentor teacher program had not survived budget cuts over the past decade or so, but led by a team of four teachers, a new program was launched this year and is already drawing praise from district instructors.

Beth Hanneman, a veteran ELL instructor in her first year in that role at Joan Austin Elementary School, said she is grateful for the program and for mentor Stacy Schumacher.

“Stacy was in my position last year and my room is right next to hers, so I always can get to her,” Hanneman said. “I wouldn’t make it without her. She helps me know how to do everything here, how the whole system works. I’ve been an ELL teacher, but each school has its own ways with paperwork or just how the system works.”

Boyd put out a call last spring for volunteers to lead the program and formed a four-member leadership team that will participate in free Oregon Department of Education training sessions and has already created program handbooks for both mentors and new teachers.

Serving on the team are TOSA (Teacher on Special Assignment) and literacy instructional coach Barb Katz, Chehalem Valley Middle School music teacher Dave Sanders, Edwards Elementary fourth grade teacher Eric Fuchs and STEM instructional coach Cassandra Thonstad.

“All four of them are passionate about it, which is why they’ve stepped up and are willing to give their time and effort to build the system,” Boyd said. “It’s fantastic.”

The team will lead four instructional sessions for program participants in October, December, February and April, but the overall plan is to refine and build the program up over the next few years.

Despite being in its infancy, the program has proved invaluable to Hanneman and the other two new teachers at Joan Austin, kindergarten instructors Janelle Gray and Michelle Held, who now have one point person to whom they can go when they have questions of any kind.

“It’s very nice to have support from a colleague, not only for curriculum, but it’s also nice to be able to go to them for advice on students,” Held said. “Jenny was nice the other day to give up a few minutes of her prep to talk to me. It’s just nice to have someone to turn to when you have a situation that you’re not quite sure how to handle. I think it’s been wonderful and will continue to be throughout the year.”

Although they haven’t received much guidance yet themselves, simply relying on their experience as teachers and familiarity with school procedures has been more than enough for mentors Becky Gilmore and Jenny Fisher to be valuable assets to their mentees.

Gilmore, for example, has found herself re-reading emails from principal Terry McElligott or going over staff meetings in her mind to see if there are things that might not have been clear to her mentee, Gray.

At one point this year, she offered to observe Gray for a short period, mostly for encouragement.

“It was great,” Gray said. “She came in for about 15 or 20 minutes, just sat there and observed, then gave me some great tips and notes. I don’t know if that was in the handbook, but it was wonderful.”

Mentor teachers are being compensated for their time with a stipend and are expected to spend one hour per week with their mentee, but all three pairs at Joan Austin said it operates more like a constant dialogue. Most of the time, they touch base several times through the day. Other times a simple question can develop into an hour-long conversation.

“I think we’ve realized how many small things that there are no way of knowing them unless you have someone to ask,” Schumacher said. “There are so many things that you forget to tell someone that’s new to a building.”

The program will also take some of the load off the hands of building principals and the group at Joan Austin believes it will increase unity among the staff overall and help build a more positive and collaborative culture.

That in turn, Boyd hopes, will help the district better retain its teachers.

“I just think it’s valuable and it has been missed in our district,” Gilmore said. “So whatever they discover this year, through us being maybe the guinea pigs of the program, to figure out and go on down the road will be great.”