Supporting, Mentoring, and Retaining New Vermont Educators

Addison Central School District has long provided mentoring for new teachers across its nine schools. In the fall of 2023, through a Rowland Fellowship, a representative group of new and experienced teachers, site principals, and central office administrators embarked on a journey to re-envision our induction program to more fully support, mentor, and retain our newest educators. As the needs of our student body have changed and intensified over recent years, and as the challenges of teaching have become increasingly more complex, we realized the criticality of prioritizing our newest educators to enable them to provide a rich learning experience to all students and to provide a pathway to a long and successful career in the classroom.  

Through our work so far, we have created an induction program for new educators in ACSD designed to help novice teachers develop responsive and research-based instructional practices to ensure student learning; build productive relationships with colleagues, students, and families; and cultivate the tools necessary to have a lasting impact in our district. In this new model, all new teachers will be supported by experienced and highly effective colleagues who value curiosity, continual growth, and reflection. Our program aspires to include high-quality mentor training; on-going, job-embedded, one-on-one mentoring support; mentee-driven cycles of inquiry; professional development tailored to the specific needs of a first-year teacher; opportunities to observe experienced teachers; and opportunities to be informally observed by mentors.  

It is our hope that through participation in ACSD’s New Teacher Induction Program, new teachers will thrive, not just in their first year, but over the course of their teaching career. They will feel supported by and connected to a professional learning community that skillfully guides them through the myriad challenges and successes of their first year in the classroom. As our newest teachers learn success, the students in our district will reap the rewards, benefitting  tremendously from teachers who feel valued, supported and equipped to confidently navigate the classrooms in which they teach.