New Teacher Toolkit: Support for New Teachers
The Growing Great Teachers toolkit helps school systems provide new teachers support they need – and reorganize the resources to do it
PERSPECTIVES FROM NEW TEACHERS
NEW TEACHER SUPPORT: RESIDENCIES AND MORE
Many school systems struggle with a teacher shortage—specifically, a lack of effective educators for the highest-need schools and subjects. High turnover among new teachers is often part of the problem. While school and district leaders want to grow and retain effective educators, most feel constrained by limited budgets. But it is possible to provide new teacher support with the resources school systems have today. In strategic schools, new teachers’ roles are fundamentally different from those of their experienced peers.
Strategic school systems enable schools to create roles with “shelter” (i.e., reduced workload) and “development” (i.e., opportunities to grow skills and practice) built in. These may be “teacher residencies,” or simply innovative school designs (involving changes to scheduling, staffing, class sizes, and more) that support new teachers. The Growing Great Teachers Toolkit is based on ERS’ experience working with several school systems to reorganize resources for new teacher residencies or new teacher support.
THE GROWING GREAT TEACHERS TOOLKIT
- Learn
- Assess
- Take Action
- connect
Growing Great Teachers: How school system leaders can use existing resources to better develop, retain, and offer support for new teachers – while improving student outcomes
This report explores how school systems can best leverage their investment in new teachers – with a particular focus on teacher residency models. We share data on relative student impacts, impact on teacher retention, and cost, and provide innovative models for supporting rookie teachers sustainably.
Growing Great Teachers: Toolkit Overview
How can school systems create the conditions for schools to provide “shelter” and “development” for their new, rookie teachers? This overview sets the stage.
District-Level Assessment
Does your school system have the enabling conditions to grow great teachers?
Schools Start Here: Professional Learning & Collaboration
Based on feedback from district leaders about which strategies they think are “big bets” for COVID recovery, our Schools Start Here series of guides offers a blueprint for how districts and schools can organize their resources right now, and in the coming years. The Professional Learning & Collaboration guide highlights relevant research, makes recommendations for how to spend federal stimulus funds, and provides concrete examples of scheduling and staffing models.
Growing Great Teachers Playbook
The Playbook offers five models schools can use to provide shelter and development for rookie teachers of all kinds: pre-service residency models, full-time teachers-of-record, and more. It will be useful for district leaders who want to understand what flexibility and support schools need to implement new models; school leaders can use it to spark ideas for what might work in their context.
Make-it-Work Planning Tool
School leaders can use this tool to reorganize resources to support new teachers – including budget planning, teacher assignments, class sizes, and other resource shifts – in a cost-neutral way. District leaders should review it to understand what flexibility and support school leaders will need.
Design-for-Excellence Workbook
As a final step, school leaders must plan for how to make new teacher support or residency models impactful – including selection criteria for mentor or guiding teachers, and protocols for collaborative time.
Workshops, Webinars, and Events
Learn about upcoming events and conferences where you can learn more about teacher residencies.
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Get in Touch
We welcome the opportunity to partner with your district to better align resources and generate a significant impact for your students, your schools, and your communities.
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
New Teacher Support in Action: Louisiana
- New Teacher Support: Lessons from Eight Louisiana School Systems
- ERS’ Emily Mayer shares 3 big lessons from working with school systems in Louisiana who have increased time for new, alternative certification teachers to work with mentors.
- Louisiana Releases Toolkit to Increase Mentoring for Alternate Certification Teachers
- The Louisiana Department of Education releases a toolkit tailored to school systems in their state, which guides school leaders in how to reorganize resources to provide new teachers with time with mentors in order to give them more “shelter” and “development” opportunities.
- This State is Reimagining How to Mentor Teachers in Alternative Certification Programs
- An Education Week article that describes the Louisiana pilot program and how it impacts schools, teachers, and students
- Full Preparation for All: Mentoring in Alternate Preparation Programs
- The Louisiana Department of Education highlights the work ERS did with eight Louisiana school systems to provide shelter and development to new teachers in alternative certification programs.
For CFOs and School Business Leaders
- New Teacher Support: Lessons from Eight Louisiana School Systems
- David Rosenberg shares ERS’ learnings on investing in new teachers with School Business Affairs Magazine and the CFO/ SBO audience.
Tools and Publications by Other Organizations on Teacher Turnover and Preparation
- Redesigning Teacher Preparation for the Public Good
- Bank Street College of Education presents a set of models to reallocate resources toward residency-style teacher preparation.
- Design for Impact
- The National Center for Teacher Residencies and Public Impact provide guidance on designing and implementing residency programs through a financial sustainability lens
- Partnering on Prep
- Education First shares tools and recommendations about how to develop strong partnerships between school districts and teacher preparation programs.
- Smart Start: Mentoring for New Teachers Benefits Kids
- Teach Plus teachers in Texas highlight the need for excellent mentoring, including the importance of release time for mentors to work with new teachers.
- Teacher Turnover: Why it Matters and What We Can Do About It
- Desire Carver-Thomas and Linda Darling-Hammon of the Learning Policy Institute examine trends, causes, and policies to address teacher turnover across the country.
- What School Districts Can Do to Tackle Teacher Shortages
- National Council on Teacher Quality elaborates on the challenges school districts are facing in the wake of teacher shortages, and outlines actions at the district at the state level for resolution.
NEXT STEPS
NEW TEACHER TOOLKIT BIG PICTURE: The Strategic System
New teacher support and residencies should be designed as part of a holistic strategy for system-wide change. This means connecting it to other elements like:
- Teaching: New teachers thrive in schools with effective teacher teams, clear roles for teacher leaders, a culture of feedback, and access to rigorous curriculum.
- Read more:
- >> Connected Professional Learning
- >> Teacher Leadership checklist
- Strategic School Design: School leaders need to learn how to organize people, time, and money to support new teachers, school culture, and student outcomes. We call this Strategic School Design – and school systems must support it.
- Read more:
- >> Designing Schools that Work
- >> Finding Time for Collaborative Planning
- Funding & Portfolio: If school leaders are to innovate with new models, school systems need to allocate funds equitably, transparently and flexibly. Student-based budgeting helps systems achieve that.
- Read more:
- >> Transforming School Funding for Equity, Transparency, and Flexibility: An Introduction to Student-based Budgeting