As schools across Montana continue to struggle with teacher recruitment and retention, school boards and administrators are always looking for ideas, incentives, or programs to help deal with the recruitment and retention problem. Schools have implemented 4-day school weeks, modified salary schedules, student loan forgiveness, housing and such. All these concepts are successful in helping recruit and retain teachers to a certain degree. One component we as a school district was missing was a strong mentoring program to help new teachers adapt to a new school and community. The discussion of a mentoring program came up in many conversations last year with the new teachers and in conversations as they were preparing for other employment pursuits. For many of us who have spent most, or their entire career in Class C schools in Montana, we assume that everyone knows what these schools are like and how they operate. Several of our new teachers have little to no experience in small rural schools and communities and to make the assumption that they know how things are in the Big Sandy School and the community would be incorrect. This is where a mentoring program comes into play. As we were interviewing candidates for the open teaching positions last spring, several of the potential teachers asked if we had a mentoring program. That just reinforced what we already suspected, that we had to implement a quality mentoring program for our new teachers. Over the course of the summer a handbook was developed by the administration and approved by the trustees in July to be a working document to help guide both the mentor and mentee. The new teachers have all been paired with a mentor teacher who is successful in their field and understands the uniqueness of living and working in a rural community.
The mentors will be getting to work right away as they will participate in the new teacher workshop on August 17. That day is devoted to our new teachers, helping them prepare for the start of school. This workshop has been incredibly effective over the years and this year’s workshop promises to be even more effective as our mentors will be a big part of that day. Our new staff has varied years of experience from this being their first teaching job to seven years of teaching experience. Even experienced teachers will benefit from the mentoring program because no two schools are alike and all do things a bit differently. We are very excited to implement this new program into our school system and are confident it will provide the tools necessary to help our new teachers grow and be successful in the classroom and become an integral part of the school and community.
