New Teacher Orientation...

I interviewed a music teacher that was new to the county. She was not a first year teacher, but new to the county. For her first day of orientation she participated in a huge meeting with all the new teachers in an auditorium. She was spoken to by officials from the county, and listened to many inspirational speeches and information about MPCS. She stated that although she knows this type of meeting is necessary, she doesn't really remember much from this meeting.

However, she felt that the rest of the orientation week was extremely useful. She said that she met with all the new music teachers (only 4 of them) everyday, along with the music supervisor. This was a very small group of teachers, and allowed her to become acclimated with how she should approach her subject within our county, and more specifically, within her school. The music supervisor met them everyday and gave them applicable information and allowed the new teachers to ask lot of questions. In addition, she also gave them time to reflect on their particular schools, guiding them as to how to approach the program within the school they will be teaching at. The teacher I interviewed found this to be very helpful in making her transition into teaching in MPCS successful.

In addition, she was assigned a mentor within her department in her school.

New Teacher Interview

I interviewed 2 new teachers because the first one that I spoke with was hired after the school year for teachers had already began. She said that the school year brought alot of excitement and many concerns. Because she was hired in September she said that she did not receive the proper orientation or development time. Administrators, teachers, and her department chair helped her get used to the school system along with helping her plan out her first year. They offered sample lesson plans, documents, and helpful materials from previous years. They also observed her classes and held meetings and small gatherings to follow up with her progress. Her consulting teacher consistently sent her helpful materials and gave her feedback on the contents of her teaching. She ended by saying that with all the help that was offered to her she was able to manage through an exciting but challenging first semester.

The second teacher that I interviewed did attend the orientation and recalls starting the first few days listening to "inspirational speeches and receiving basic information". She explained that the music teachers then split from the large group and met together at a different school. There they got into groups based on whether they were teaching at the elementary or secondary level. Teachers also had the opportunity to sign up for different hour long sessions of numerous subjects but by the time she returned to the "home base school" from her music meetings all of the sessions were filled. She also explained that when she wasn't at the orientation meetings she was at her school working with administrators and teachers as they assisted her in preparing for the first week of school.

Interviewing New Teacher by Gustavo Alonso

I interviewed a new language teacher at B-CC about his orientation to the county. He said that he didn't have much in terms of orientation because he had to attend the professional week and then one day in which veteran teachers decorate their classrooms and get ready to start the new year he had to attend some new teacher workshops. He is only part-time so he doesn't have to attend regular meetings and in-house training workshops the full-time teachers attend, but he was assigned a veteran teacher to help him. In addition, as part of my internship, I am also his mentor, so he has two veteran teachers helping him and tracking his progress (although I am not performing an evaluative role). Before he started teaching at the school, he had already been working there as substitute teacher for more than 2 years, so everyone knew him already, and he knew the school well. The first marking period was a little rocky in terms of classroom management, but he's doing great now.

Do we have to allocate money to this cause, too?

Where do we cut from in order to make sure it is done right?