Mentor Program for Teachers
Lending New Teachers a Hand

When newly hired teachers in SAU #16 sign a contract to teach, they now receive some extra insurance for a successful school year. Shortly after being hired in Brentwood, East Kingston, Exeter, Kensington, Newfields, Stratham, or the Exeter Region Cooperative School District, new teachers are paired up with a mentor. These veterans help their new colleagues through the challenges of a new job in a new community.

National statistics reveal that a large percentage of promising new teachers do not survive their first few years in the classroom. New teachers often become isolated in their own classrooms, unable to benefit from the wisdom around them. Although SAU #16 towns do not face the teacher turnover which plagues so many other communities, a professional mentor program is now entering its third year.

Following a year of research and committee work under the leadership of former EAJHS principal Thomas Meehan, the SAU #16 program made its first mentor matches for the 2000-2001 school year. The program has grown each year. More than thirty local educators currently have a mentor. In addition to being selected by their principal, mentors now must participate in special training. The district has even created a small handbook to assist the mentors in their work.

The nature of mentoring varies greatly through the year. September activities help the new teachers with matters such as building procedures, community resources, and time management. As routines become more familiar, mentors begin to share various “tricks of the trade” learned during their careers. Instructional techniques, classroom management, long range planning, assessment, and report cards become the focus of the regular meetings between mentor and mentee.

When a mentor feels a strong professional relationship has developed, he or she will begin visiting the mentee’s classroom. Follow-up conferences discuss the positives and also suggest alternative ways of doing things. Often mentees will visit not only their own mentor’s classroom but also those of other teachers in the building.

Mentors, however, are not supervisors. They have no direct involvement in administrative evaluations of their mentee. The mentor-mentee relationship is a friendly and trusting relationship between colleagues. The mentee does not have to worry about his or her mentor “running to the boss” with reports. SAU and building administrators retain full responsibility for supervision and evaluation of all staff, and they are regularly in classrooms, particularly those of new teachers.

For further information about the SAU #16 Mentor Program, contact the building principal in your town. At Exeter High School and the Cooperative Middle School, curriculum coordinators Peter Stackhouse (EHS) and David Archambault (CMS) oversee the program. EHS English teacher Roxanne Wazlaw chairs the SAU Mentor Committee, Jeff Hillier coordinates for the district, and Asst. Superintendent Barbara Lobdell is the administrator in charge.