Skip to main content

Duke Joins Effort to Help Public School Teachers

New mentoring program pairs new teachers with experienced ones

President Richard H. Brodhead talks with Alvetia Anderson, a teacher at Brogden Middle School.

Mary Bolt assumed she was prepared for her first year of teaching. She soon discovered how wrong she was.

"I thought I knew it all," said Bolt, who began her teaching career nine years ago in Virginia. "When you start out, you have so many plans. You get into the classroom, and then reality sets in. A lot of teachers quickly say, 'This is not for me.'

"I'm hoping to let them know that if you can manage to make it through the first year, it gets much better."

Bolt, who recently taught at Durham's Southwest Elementary, is one of 23 veteran teachers who already have been recruited for a new full-time mentor program to start in the Durham schools in time for the coming year.

Officials hope to hire several more teachers for the mentor program, which would take longtime educators out of the classroom and allow them to serve as full-time mentors for newly hired teachers.

Durham is the first district in the state to move forward with the full-time mentor program, developed by the New Teacher Center at the University of California at Santa Cruz.

On Monday, school system officials announced the program would be supported with $300,000 from the Duke-Durham Neighborhood Partnership, a university-community collaboration.

The money will help pay for training for the new mentors and also cover the costs of working with leaders from the New Teacher Center, who will come to Durham and run some of the initial training sessions.

After three years, school system officials should be able to train new mentors on their own, said Fred Williams, the district's executive director of teacher recruitment and retention.

Officials from the school system and Duke joined principals and about 10 recently hired mentors Monday at the announcement of the $300,000 gift at Rogers-Herr Middle School.

The mood was festive, with several leaders expressing optimism that the program would help ease the heavy burden placed on new teachers.

Officials hope to change statistics that show that 17 percent of Durham's new teachers leave the district at the end of their first year -- and 42 percent leave after three years.

"New teachers need a coach, and someone to hold their hand," Durham schools Superintendent Ann Denlinger said. "Too many teachers fail to get the support they need."

Duke President Richard Brodhead said he's proud his university can provide support and help turn around Durham's low teacher-retention rates.

The $300,000 comes from the Duke Endowment, a Charlotte-based charitable trust, through the Duke-Durham Neighborhood Partnership.

"Teaching is not as easy as people think it is," Brodhead said. "There's a lot of it that doesn't come naturally; it has to come through experience. This is something we can do to help get over those initial ruts and potholes."

With the finances in place, the school system now turns its attention to hiring the remaining mentors and beginning extensive training in early August.

Williams said more than 90 veteran teachers applied for about 30 mentor slots -- showing that Durham's educators realize the new program could be vitally important in helping to keep new teachers onboard for the long term.

While sad to be leaving her second- and third-graders at Southwest, Bolt said she knows she's needed as a mentor -- and she's excited to get to work.

"More than just affirming that the teachers are on the right track, I hope I can help them feel like they can ask me anything," Bolt said. "We do lose a lot of new teachers here, and I know myself and the other mentors will try our best to get to the heart of their problems and help."