A Case Study of the Fort Smith Public Schools New Teacher Induction Program

1. A Case Study of the Fort Smith Public Schools New Teacher Induction Program Paul M. Hewitt University of Arkansas Monica Wilhelm Fort Smith Public Schools

2. What’s This Session About? • Look at the problem of new teacher “drop-outs” • Look at the Research on the elements of effective new teacher induction programs • Look at a Case Study of Ft. Smith’s New Teacher Induction Program • Tie back to the research and talk about the “critical attributes” (“Power Standards?”) of New Teacher Induction and new teacher retention.

3. Reflections and Suppositions • Most of us forget what it’s like to be “knew” until we “re-experience” it. • New, beginning teachers know less than we presume. • New teachers are scared. • New teachers are their own worst enemy. They are their own biggest critic! • Being a new teacher is like being a long distance runner at the start of the race.

4. Teacher Drop-outs – What’s the Problem? • Each year we produce more new teachers than we hire. (Darling-Hammond 2003) But, • Since 1990 the number of teachers leaving the classroom surpasses the number of new teachers (Darling-Hammond, 2003). • Our profession has reached a negative population growth (Howe & Strauss, 2000). • The crisis may not be in a need to recruit, but rather retain those in the profession (Cochran and Smith, 2004) • Only 60-70% of new teachers enter teaching jobs each year. (Darling-Hammond, 2001)

5. What’s the Drop-out Rate? • Variation in Reports, but all show it as high • 9.3% in year one, 50% by the end of year 5 (Dove, 2004) • 46% leave in first 5 years (Ingersoll & Smith, 2003) • Percentage higher in “inner-city” areas (Greiner & Smith, 2006)

6. Do Induction Programs Work? • Education Week Headline: “Little Impact from Intensive Teacher Induction Programs.” (Glaxerman, et.al.,2008) • Misleading – Compared two highly intensive commercial programs. (ETS and New Teacher Center Program, UC Santa Cruz) • These programs didn’t work! • Why? What does work?

7. Three Basic Program Models • Basic Orientation • Policies and procedures and an informal mentor. • Instructional Practice • Covers instructional skills and the teaching of standards plus policies and procedures. • School Transformation • Has orientation and instructional practice, develops a “community of learners.”

8. Four Characteristics of a Good Program(Stansbury and Zimmerman, 2000) • Improving Teacher Performance – Mentoring & Programmatic Focus • Promoting the Personal & Professional Well-Being of Beginning Teachers • Satisfying Mandated Requirements for Induction and Licensure • Transmitting the Culture of the System to Beginning Teachers

9. Characteristic #1 Improving Teacher Performance – Mentoring and Programmatic Focus • Use Book by Wong & Wong, The First Day of School: How to be an Effective Teacher • Binder for all materials. • Write a personal reflection for each meeting and share it. • Assigned a mentor. • Focus on classroom management – Each teacher new teacher will have an effective classroom management system

10. Characteristic #2 Promoting the Personal and Professional Well-Being of Teachers • “Personal Poster” they share with others. • Assigned seats and rotated at each meeting. • Refreshments and shared experiences. • Develop sound relationships with other teachers and mentors.

11. Characteristic #3 Satisfying Mandated Requirements for Induction and Licensure • Important to meet legal mandates. • Most Important – It takes pressure/burden off the beginning teacher. • One less thing to think and worry about.

12. Characteristic # 4 Transmitting the Culture of the System • All D.O. staff meet and introduce themselves and what they do to impact the classroom. • Released early from one of the 1st sessions to meet one-on-one with the site principal. • Tour the community by bus. Get a first hand view of neighborhoods. Where do the kids come from?

13. Fort Smith Program Impact • After 10 years the program has retained 68% of new teachers. • Others? How about the other 32%? • 1% took Admin. Jobs. • 14% took a teaching job in another district. • 17% cited family or personal reasons for leaving. • Program has changed based on program evaluations.

14. Preliminary Conclusions • Intensive Instructional Programs probably won’t work. • Think Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. • Lowest level is Physiological. • Next Two levels are Safety and Loving/Belonging. • Job security is in Safety. • Loving/Belonging • (Next level, Esteem, will come later) • Base first year program on inducting teachers into the social culture and give them key survival skills (classroom management).

15. “The Rest of the Story!” • Let’s take a few minutes to look at some research, or at least some insightful quotes. • What is the “picture” that is being painted? • Let’s do some reading!!

16. What’s It Like? • Several Studies suggest that however advanced or dynamic the pre-service training might have been, “Beginning teachers actually learn how to teach when they enter the classroom for the first year.” (Wideen, Mayer-Smith, & Moon, 1998)

17. Loneliness • The overall process of teaching is “deeply Personal.” (Wideen, Mayer-Smith, & Moon, 1998) • New teachers can feel “alone and isolated.” (Flores, 2001) • Wideen, Mayer-Smith, and Moon (1998) found “seven studies confirmed the widely held view that the first year of teaching is a culture shock for beginning teachers,” and “most found teaching more difficult than they thought it would be”

18. Relationships • Flores (2001) found, every respondent in her study “claimed that there was not a supportive atmosphere at school and that working relationships among staff were not effective”

19. Help Anyone? • Halford (1998), who acknowledges teaching as the “profession that eats its young” , reports novice teachers, who know they are on probation, fear that seeking assistance will be seen as a sign of incompetence. • Rust (1994) found that even if support services appear to be available, novice teachers may be embarrassed to ask for help.

20. School Culture • Sargent (2003) found a school culture that not only offered meaningful professional development but provided “a social setting in which teachers enjoy working.” • The dominant themes were emotional needs and social needs; someone to talk to or a mentor; classroom management including discipline; culture or specific school procedures; time management, planning, understanding curriculum, and administrator support. (Dop, 2006)

21. (More Culture) • Zimmerman (2003) states that “when you are new to teaching, everyone is a stranger. You have entered a school community that has a history of social dynamics and relationship that does not include you.” • Halford (1998) says that a major danger is isolation.

22. Lets’ Get to the Key Factor! • "By far the most prominent theme of those discussed in both the questionnaires and the interviews is that teachers have a high need for social and emotional support at work. In fact, discussion of other themes often brought us back to this overarching belief that in order to be successful, novice teachers need emotional support especially in the early years of teaching."(Dop, 2006)

23. Who is the Key Person? Listen to Michaela • Even before school started her first year, Michaela was beginning to wonder about the decision she had made. During new teacher orientation, the principal drew a map of the state on the board and asked the new teachers where they were from. The battle she was waging with homesickness overcame her usual shy nature in new surroundings, and she proudly called out the name of the town where she and her family had lived since she was in grade school thinking that everyone would do the same. Unfortunately, it was either not the response the principal wanted, or she had played directly into his hand allowing him to embarrass her by drawing a big circle around the city in which they all now lived and say, “No, now you are from Walnut. We brought you here, and this is where you live now.” He went on to say that teachers come from different communities each day to teach at the school, but we need to be a team. Instead of feeling a part of something, Michaela was crushed and thought, “You just negated the last how many years of my life?” Suddenly she found herself in a community where she “always felt like an outsider” and believed that basically it was because she did not grow up there.

24. What Happened to Michaela? • Michaela did not have a mentor at her first school, but she does now. The first year she relied on her mom and the business teachers at her mom’s school to help her with lessons and curriculum especially when she was assigned the task of creating an entirely new business course that she would teach beginning in January. She says if she had not had her mom and that school to fall back on and the excellent input from the network of business teachers hooked together by the Internet, she would not be teaching today.

25. How About Sara • The first year started out pretty lonely for Sara as well. Although she made it through the first quarter before she actually broke down and cried at school, there had been private tears many times before that. She had moved nearly 150 miles from home to the big city where she didn’t know anyone and didn’t have time to make friends, and she admits that it didn't help that she tried to go home as many weekends as possible to visit her fiancé and her friends. Volleyball practice as the assistant coach was the highlight of her day because she could get some physical exercise and be with the coach and even the students in a more relaxed atmosphere.

26. So, What Happened? • But the school days were long and difficult; then a teacher began to stop at her room and drag her to eat lunch with the other teachers. She told her it just was not worth it—she needed adult contact. Overwhelmed with lesson plans and papers to grade, Sara was sure she simply could not afford time to eat lunch away from her desk but later realized that teacher was her lifeline; lunch with people who became her friends kept her sane in what she now sees was a very unorganized school. This year seems easier for many reasons, not the least of which is simple organization on the part of the school so that she doesn’t feel she is constantly running after loose ends by herself.

27. The Principal – The Key Player • "Michaela and Jeff also indicated open communication and frequent contact helped to build a trusting relationship with their administrators. Jeff said just being able to start on things early in the summer and come to the principal and secretary with those early questions, which often resulted in longer conversations, helped build a trusting relationship." "Dop, 2006)

28. Principal – Must “Be There” • “Be there—in the classroom, daily if possible. Mark says that he cannot overstate the importance of being in the classroom on a consistent basis and unannounced and interacting positively with that teacher and not just in the classroom but in between classes, in the halls, at lunch, seeing those people. He likes to drop in informally, just to drop in, where all he’s doing is saying, “Hey, how’s it going? It’s good to see ya; have a great day.” That kind of thing—it’s important just because it is recognition and affirmation on a really basic and fundamental human level—people need that, and that’s good to do.” (Dop, 2006)

29. Principal – Invest Time • “Investing time in growing relationship. Wayne (Principal) agrees with Mark that building a relationship with new teachers is foundational to any help he can give. He says he is never able to be in classrooms as much as he would like to be but that it all goes back to the emotional support; he works toward being comfortable with each other as friends, as acquaintances, which is why he starts before school starts. He tries to be more and more proactive every year to connect with the new staff so that their reaction to him isn’t “Who is this guy?” (Dop, 2006)

30. Principal – Reaching Out • “Jeff shows that determination to understand his surroundings helped but that building a relationship with his administrator was foundational to his success. His administrator reached out to him with encouragement and open communication, but Jeff proved the story is really one of reciprocity as he reached back with questions and concerns when he needed guidance.” (Dop, 2006)

31. What are the Real Conclusions? • What are the real basic needs of first-year teachers? • Probably not clinical skills or intensive instruction. • The key to staying is in building relationships, belonging. • The pivotal person is the principal. • Develop a sense of belonging, support and caring and people will stay. • Build instructional/teaching capacity, but also recognize it is not the most important thing.

32. Teach Induction • New Teacher Drop-out Rate • 10% the 1st year • Up to 50% the first 5 years • Greatest in “hard to staff schools” • Look at The Literature on Teacher Induction and Match it Up to Ft. Smiths Program

33. Do Induction Programs Work? • Education Week Headline: “Little Impact from Intensive Teacher Induction Programs!” (Glaxerman et.al., 2008) • Misleading- Compared highly intensive commercial programs to current district programs. So, THESE programs didn’t work. • How about what we do?

34. Three Program Models • Basic Orientation • Policies and procedures and an informal Mentor • Instructional Practice • Covers instructional skills and the teaching of standards plus policies and procedures. • School Transformation • Has orientation and instructional practice, develops a “community of learners”

35. Four Characteristics of a Good Program • Improving Teacher Performance – Mentoring & Programmatic Focus • Promoting the Personal & Professional Well-Being of Beginning Teachers • Satisfying Mandated Requirements for Induction and Licensure • Transmitting the Culture of the System to Beginning Teachers

36. Improving Teacher Performance – Mentoring and Programmatic Focus • Use Book by Wong & Wong, The First Day of School: How to be an Effective Teacher • Binder for materials • Write a personal reflection for each meeting and share • Assigned a mentor • Focus on classroom management – Each new teacher will have an effective classroom management system

37. Promoting the Personal and Professional Well-Being of New Teachers • “Personal Poster” they share with others. • Assigned seats and rotated • Refreshments and shared experience • Develop sound relationships with other teachers and mentors.

38. Satisfying Mandated Requirements for Induction and Licensure • Important to meet legal Mandates. • Most important – It takes another burden off of the New Teacher.

39. Transmitting the Culture of the System • All D.O. staff meet and introduce themselves and what they do to impact the classroom • Released early from one of the 1st sessions to meet one on one with the principal. • Community Tour – Bus Trip.

40. Program Impact • After 10 years the program has retained 68% of new teachers. • Others? • 1% took admin. Jobs in District • 14% took a teaching job in another district • 17% cited family or personal reasons for leaving • Program has changed based upon participant year-end evaluations

41. My Conclusions • Intensive Instructional Focus programs probably don’t work. • Think Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. • Lowest level is Physiological and Safety • Next two levels are Safety (Safety of Employment) and Loving/Belonging. • Base first year program on inducting teachers into the social culture and give them key survival skills.