Ready from day one as full-time teachers

Hannah Jeter just finished her first year as a first-grade teacher in the El Dorado School District –but it didn’t really feel like it. In fact, Hannah’s colleagues often forgot that it was her first year teaching because of the confidence and skill she brought to the classroom.

In her fourth year at Southern Arkansas University (SAU), Hannah participated in SAU’s Rider Residency, a paid year-long residency program with an experienced mentor teacher. The Rider Residency is a direct output of SAU’s participation in Forward’s EPP (Educator Preparation Program) Design Collaborative, created in response to the growing trend of teachers leaving the classroom in their first five years and new teachers citing not feeling prepared for school culture and the demands of the classroom as reasons for their exit. However, through the Rider Residency, Hannah was able to have early exposure to those challenges and gain invaluable training and mentorship.

Districts like El Dorado have been eager to provide their time and resources to help aid in teacher recruitment and retention. Along the way, district administrators have found paid year-long residencies to be mutually beneficial for their teachers, students, and schools.

Two years ago, when El Dorado’s superintendent came to Alison Shepherd with the opportunity to be a mentor-teacher, she thought she wasn’t ready. Alison had been in the classroom for six years and had a very non-traditional path to teaching after a communications career and time home with her family. She thought, “Surely there were more experienced teachers than me,” but her superintendent insisted that she was the right mentor for Hannah.

Serving as a mentor-teacher helped Alison realize her own strengths as a kindergarten teacher. At times, Alison would be tempted to hop into a lesson and tell Hannah how to do it her way rather than giving Hannah the space to explore and grow. “Just because she doesn’t do things the way I want her to doesn’t mean it’s the wrong way, and I needed to let her grow and sometimes the best growth is failure,” said Alison. With trial and error, “Hannah brought new ideas and technology to the classroom that I hadn’t thought of before,” added Alison.

More confident in her mentoring abilities, Alison took on a second teacher resident this past school year, Hannah Burns. Hannah was working as a paraprofessional in the El Dorado School District while taking courses online at SAU. While Burns had experience with the school culture and teaching, the teacher residency program allowed her to encounter unique challenges that can come up in a school year.

With the benefit of two teachers in the classroom, Hannah was able to give increased attention to students who needed more assistance. For example, she underwent Picture Exchange Communication System training to aid a non-verbal student. The student went from being non-verbal at the beginning of the school year to being able to say all their letter sounds and repeat them back by the end of the year.

“Had it not been for my teacher resident, that would not have been possible with just me and 20 students on my own,” Alison said. “The teacher residents have been an amazing blessing to my students.”

This school year, Alison will be headed to a new school in need of a kindergarten teacher…and Hannah will be joining her as a first-grade teacher at that school! Alison deeply believes that paid year-long residencies are “the way to support students in college to really learn the teaching field and support recruitment and retention in Arkansas.”