For Immediate Release • September 22, 2005
Terren Roloff, Director
Community Relations
Phone: 354-7338

Mentors help new teachers start the year off right

Two dozen eyes staring at you, waiting for you to take control and start the lesson.

The first year of teaching can be quite daunting for new teachers. But when they have a mentor, they can stand before their class knowing they have the support of someone with years of experience.

Spokane Public Schools’ Career in Teaching program has started its fourth year of pairing new teachers with veterans in the field. The program is unique in that the mentor teachers are released from their classroom duties to provide 100 percent of their time to their mentees.

This year, the CiT program has nine mentors, each of whom work with between 12 and 15 new teachers. Among their responsibilities are modeling teaching and classroom management strategies, arranging observations of other teachers, co-teaching and co-planning lessons, and video taping lessons.

Please contact Jan Rust 354-5651 for more information or to talk with a mentor and mentee. There are folks on standby today.