The following column by Janice Holt, director of the Western Carolina University Center for the Support of Beginning Teachers, appeared in the School News section of the Asheville Citizen-Times Sept. 1, 2005.

Start of school year can be scary for beginning teachers, too
By JANICE HOLT

Janice Holt

For most teachers, fall is a time of excitement, anticipation and reflection. While looking forward to beginning a new school year, many think back on previous years – most often their first classroom experience.

As a career teacher, I also remember my first year of teaching, as well as the months before I was hired. Then a new graduate of Western Carolina University, I remember submitting applications, interviewing and anxiously waiting to hear if I had a job. “If” was the key in 1976 when there were many more applicants than positions.

Much has changed. The fall of 2005 saw many school systems in Western North Carolina scrambling to fill classrooms with qualified teachers. Staffing schools in this area has become more difficult because of increasing teacher turnover, growing student enrollments, decreasing class sizes, and skyrocketing numbers of teachers retiring from the teaching force. 

At the same time, new legislation and accountability models intended to “raise the bar” in public schools find teachers facing greater pressures. Teachers must ensure that an increasingly diverse school population achieves at higher levels.

Beginning teachers, in particular, have additional challenges: learning to manage student behavior, becoming familiar with local policies and job expectations, and translating classroom theory into effective practice.  It's no surprise that statistics show that 30 percent of new teachers leave the profession by the end of their third year of teaching and 50 percent are gone by the end of year five.

In response to this situation, Western Carolina University has stepped forward to lend a hand in the area of new teacher support. A newly established Center for Support of Beginning Teachers is designed to provide assistance to Western North Carolina school systems in their efforts to prevent beginning teachers from leaving the profession. Part of Western's College of Education and Allied Professions, the center will build upon the university's existing partnerships with the public schools to stem the tide of new teachers abandoning the profession before they complete five years of service.

Much of the of the teacher shortage we are experiencing in the mountains – in fact, across the entire state – is due to issues we face in retaining qualified teachers in the classroom. This new center is part of an on-going effort to help keep beginning teachers in the classroom and provide them support to persist and be successful in the teaching profession. To put it another way, we are trying to ‘mend the leaking bucket.'

Through the center, Western faculty will collaborate with beginning teachers, mentors, principals and central office personnel to develop effective programs that help new teachers successfully transition into the profession. The center will provide resources and professional development activities tailored to teachers in WNC and will include experiences intended to result in highly qualified teachers who implement classroom activities that promote high student performance.

Rick Smith, a nationally recognized speaker and author of “Conscious Classroom Management: Unlocking the Secrets of Great Teaching,” speaks to beginning teachers at a recent symposium at Western Carolina University.

About 120 first-year teachers from the seven westernmost counties of North Carolina and from Cherokee took part in a Beginning Teacher Induction Symposium on Aug. 16-17. They heard from Rick Smith, a nationally recognized speaker and author of “Conscious Classroom Management: Unlocking the Secrets of Great Teaching,” and worked in small groups on topics of interest to new teachers.

In addition to providing professional development and technical assistance, the center also will collect data and conduct research examining the outcomes of mentoring and induction programs. The center and its school partners will seek external funding in the form of grants to further support its activities.

My classroom is no longer filled with sixth-grade students. My classroom is now filled with the faces of beginning teachers from across Western North Carolina, and I look forward to this school year with excitement, anticipation and reflection.

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Janice Holt is director of Western Carolina University's Center for the Support of Beginning Teachers. For more information, contact Holt at (828) 227-7311