SUPPORTING FIRST YEAR TEACHERS AT FRIENDS SCHOOLS

Sam Taylor

Background

Scattergood attracts teachers with a wide range of teaching and life experiences. Since I started as the Academic Dean, it’s been a key part of my role to mentor and develop all teachers. For retention, I have found it particularly important to pay attention to the experience of first year teachers.

In that time I have worked to strengthen a peer coaching model. I have also started meeting on a set schedule with all teachers, in low-stakes 30-minute sessions. I meet with new teachers every other week. Two years ago, we developed a set of fve core teaching practices (e.g., “Balance student-led inquiry and teacher-led instruction”), and these have become one lens through which we collaborate on teacher growth.

I am improving in this part of my job, but I’ve also experienced some challenges. I have not done well creating a set schedule of teacher evaluations, and always feel behind in this. I had a diffcult experience letting a teacher go, unsure of whether I gave her enough early feedback. I have questioned the value of our mentor program.

So, I’m led to an essential question: “How can schools best support and develop secondary teachers throughout their first year?” To get at this question, I interviewed six administrators at Friends schools who are in charge of teacher development. I asked them questions about their programs, and they put me in touch with first year teachers at their schools to whom I sent a short survey.

In a review of the literature, I found one study quite useful: published in 2021 by NAIS, it focused on support for new teachers. Two of their key recommendations for schools seemed particularly relevant:

1. “Develop consistent and personalized mentorship programs for new teachers. Only 19% of teachers in schools with 300 students or fewer reported that they were extremely or very satisfied with new teacher induction programs.”

2. “Provide a clear evaluation and feedback process that focuses on growth and development of teachers. When asked if they had a clear understanding of how to reach career goals, just 14% of teachers strongly agreed.”

Learning

My data included seven schools (Westtown, George, Scattergood, Sandy Spring, Mullica Hill, Friends Select, and Mary McDowell). While schools approached the support and growth of first year teachers pretty differently, programs fell into three main areas: Mentor Programs, Professional Growth, and Formal Evaluation.

Mentor Programs

Six of the seven schools have peer mentor programs which tend to focus on teaching the culture, systems, and values of the school. Levels of accountability and resources given to these programs differ widely. Administrators generally thought these programs were useful but wished they could provide more structure and time. Mentor quality varies, and without formal times to meet and lacking specific goals, these programs can be less valuable in practice than in theory.

Of the eight new teacher respondents, only one listed their peer mentor as a valuable resource in their first year (though all of them ostensibly had one). Two mentioned them, but not in a particularly positive light. Five didn’t think to list them as “one of the ways I was supported as a teacher in my first year.” Representative of this attitude was this comment: “Having a mentor without any dedicated time sort of undermined the whole purpose, especially once things got busy.”

Two of the keys to a successful mentor program that were highlighted by Maggie Chiles, in her 2017 Action Research Project, were: (1) Clearly defined roles and responsibilities of the peer mentor, and (2) secure time for the mentors to meet. Based on the teacher data, these two components were missing from the less successful mentor programs.

Professional Growth and Evaluation

Many administrators were wrestling with the tension between their evaluative role and their role in teacher growth. Three of the seven schools are working to separate “growth and renewal” from “evaluation.” They are working to make the evaluative process into more of a binary checklist–are your grades in on time? Are you meeting standards of professionalism?–while the “coaching model” is focused on teacher-generated as well as school-wide goals.

There were as many models for developing frst year teachers as there were schools. One school with a very small 6-8 program relied a great deal on their mentor program for teacher development, alongside “Professional Growth Plans.” Another school has a Director of PD whose role is entirely non-evaluative; he observes teachers and meets with them individually. A couple of schools rely on Department Chairs, though there is an understanding that the experience may vary quite a bit from department to department. Some schools include a minimum of 3 or 4 classroom evaluations per year. In other schools it is more haphazard. In some schools, the stated policy runs into the problem of administrator time.

In general, administrators seem to agree that this model works best when”

1. Teachers are a part of goal setting

2. There is a set schedule of classroom visits and meetings

3. Emphasis can be placed on the pre-meeting (What are your goals for this lesson? How can you accomplish them?) not just on post-visit feedback, and

4. New teachers are embedded in a community of teachers who can support them.

While mentors from outside a teacher’s department were of mixed value to teachers, they spoke much more often of leadership (department chairs, division heads, etc.) whose role was to help teachers develop in their craft. Seven of the eight respondents mentioned these relationships as being helpful. Informal relationships with teachers in their departments were also cited as being helpful by six new teachers.

Next Steps

I will put these understandings into practice at Scattergood:

1. I need a more formal classroom evaluation schedule, which can hopefully coincide with my already clear 1:1 meeting schedule. I am piloting this in the spring of 2024.

2. I have also begun the process of building a basic professionalism checklist along with our 5 core teaching practices into my regular 1:1 meetings. I will get feedback from teachers about how this is going at the end of the year.

3. We need to look at our mentor program, and either (a) invest more time and structure into the program, or (b) lay it down. I hope to work with our Head of School this spring to consider more accountability and better compensation for mentors.

I hope that the generosity and wisdom of those who helped me with this project can continue to resonate with me, and that I can keep working towards these goals even as “more pressing” concerns arise.

SAM TAYLOR

Academic Dean & Assistant Head of School Scattergood Friends School West Branch, IA

I came to Scattergood after teaching math in Honduras, assuming I would stay for just a year or two (I was a bit off!). Over my frst 15 years at the school I taught humanities, writing, social studies, and math classes. I also coached soccer, clerked staff meetings, and led trips to Latin America. In the middle of that time, I had a formative experience earning a Master’s at Teachers College, where I learned to pay closer attention to the lived cognitive experience of my students. For the last fve years, I have served in my current role, which allows me to mentor teachers, supports students, and serve as a steward for our wider institutional goals.