Mentors for Beginning Teachers and Induction for Administrators - Mentoring programs for new teachers is critical. One of the roles I held in my organization was as a new teacher mentor coach. It was a wonderful experience and it was so beneficial to the teachers. We had less teacher attrition during the 2 years that the program was implemented. It eventually become to expensive to continue funding but I think that the payoffs in attrition and teacher preparedness and burnout outweighed the costs. As stated by Seyfarth, teachers respond better to other teachers over administrators. This is because they are not threatened. They feel that the advice they are receiving from observations in meant to grow them as opposed to be evaluative. The training we received was from The New Teacher Center in California. Their program was phenomenal. The program was very intentional and didn't rely on people volunteering to help others. It also was a job of one person so that teachers that are already in the classroom are not having to try and find time in their day to meet, coach and model for someone else.
Job Satisfaction and Teacher Turnover - Attrition and teacher turnover are issues in my school. It seems as though every year we are hiring between 5-10 new teachers and we only have 38 teachers in the building. At one time our management group implemented a new teacher mentor coach position which was a wonderful tool and strategy for trying to keep new teachers and to support teachers from burning out while working in an inner city school. Our text referenced a statistic that 1/2 of new teachers in urban schools will leave within 5 years. I have heard teachers comment before that they are going to look for something different because they know that they can go somewhere else and not have to work as hard. While it can be frustrating to be looking for new people, we have to decide that the children are what is most important and that if this is the attitude of the teacher, we don't want them working with the kids anyway. Schools do need to strategize about how they will work to keep teachers rather than accepting the high turn over. There is too much vested in the training and relationships with current staff to continue having to go through the process every year.
Characteristics of Successful Evaluation Programs - Seyfarth states that successful evaluation programs inform teachers in advance what criteria will be used to judge performance. I have found this to be very true. Within my organization there are several different rubrics used in the evaluation process depending on the job held within the building. Teacher rubrics are very specific about the criteria that is used to measure performance and teachers have an understanding of what they must be able to demonstrate in order to receive any given number on the evaluation form. This makes conducting evaluations so much better for the administration as well as the teachers. It makes the process less subjective and this makes teachers feel that the process is fair. I also like to meet with teachers personally to review the evaluation they are going to be receiving with them one on one as opposed to just filling it out. Teachers appreciate the care that is taken since it can be a very stressful time for them.
Qualities of Productive Work Environments - Jacobson identified 8 key components of a quality work environment. Clear mission, stimulating professional development opportunities, supportive administrative leadership, professional culture, opportunity to use one's talents and skills, comfortable, attractive and well-equipped physical space, adequate time to perform required tasks and adequate supply of materials and equipment. One of the comments from the text that made an impression on me was that according to Comer, schools neglect physical, social and moral development. Fuller states that teachers have had to become so focused on raising test scores that they are not focusing on these other things. I see these things happening in our building as well. Teachers are having to be so focused on test scores. They drive everything that they do. There scores are tied to so many things for them and now with the new state accountability for teachers and administrators, I think this will just get worse. I don't think my teachers are ignoring kids because I think they have fantastic relationships with students, but there aren't enough hours in the day to do all that they need to do and somethings have to give. They are going to focus on the academic objectives if they have to choose over other objectives that they may not feel are as important.
Methods of Resolving Conflict and Managing Conflict Through the Grievance Process - Conflict resolution is a huge piece in human resources. It seems as though I spend at least some part of my day almost everyday solving some sort of conflict. The conflict may not reach the extent of requiring a mediator or ombudsmen but I feel as though mediation on some level takes place often. The mediation leads to achieving cooperation with one another. Reading information regarding the grievance process was beneficial for me as I have never been a part of a public school sector or a part of a union.
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