"Raise your hand if your last parent communication was like Jaws," said West Lane Elementary principal Cynthia Matthew.

New teachers and mentors sheepishly glanced around the room. No one volunteered.

"Good. No one was eaten alive," Matthew said.

About 40 teachers had gathered Tuesday for their third installment of new teacher training, focused on "dealing with difficult parents."

The Jackson School District has significantly changed the way it nurtures its beginning teachers, in a state where 26.7 percent of first-year teachers leave the classroom after one to three years and 36 percent leave after five.

"Mentors were dissatisfied with the hodgepodge, inconsistent methods, and brought it to the professional development committee [last year]," said Terri Fisher-Reed, who helped develop the new program for the district.

Previously, principals assigned teachers mentors, as required by the state, but there weren't clear guidelines about what a mentor was supposed to teach.

"It was a looser program. ... Just basically here is someone you can go to for help," Fisher-Reed said.

Since then, mentors have been taught how to be mentors and a formalized process was developed that outlines month by month what new teachers and their mentors should be discussing.

Also, the district has decided to train all of its new teachers in house, through four learning sessions. Teachers were previously sent to Southeast Missouri State University's Regional Professional Development Center.

"We needed a mentoring program to deal with the needs we have here," said Sharlett Eftink, a junior high teacher and mentor.

The training is held for an hour and a half after school, eliminating the need for substitute teachers, and is conducted by building principals, counselors, instructional facilitators and central office administrators, allowing the district to select the topics of discussion.

Discussion has ranged from lesson planning to student challenges to parent communications. The final session will be on teaching strategies.

At the Tuesday meeting, teachers were divided into groups and assigned scenarios, such as what to do if an angry parent questions a teacher about their child receiving a B instead of an A.

Teachers agreed they would show work samples, send progress reports home routinely and provide ways the parent could work with their child at home.

"What we're trying to do with this program is eliminate problems before they get out of hand," said Jana Scott, a kindergarten teacher at South Elementary and a mentor.

Scott and her "protege," Charity Lukefahr, have a monthly checklist of items they should discuss ranging from procedures to the development of professional development plans.

Time is built in twice a year for the two to observe each other as well as top-performing teachers in the district.

At Orchard Elementary, Lukefahr learned a "crazy but fun" way to teach new words: tape them on the ceiling, have students lie on the floor, turn out the lights, and have students locate the words with flashlights.

"With that game, they get repeated exposure to words. I thought 'OK, I've got to try it,'" Lukefahr said.

Lukefahr said the biggest thing she has learned from Scott is time management.

"Starting a new class can be overwhelming at times," she said.

Typically classroom management is the biggest issue for new teachers, Fisher-Reed said.

"That continues to be something that doesn't seem to be as thoroughly taught at the university level," she said. The district makes up for it by starting off the year before classes begin, teaching management strategies, among other topics, during a four-day in-service. This was the first year mentors attended the sessions with their proteges.

The Cape Girardeau School District's mentoring program is similar to Jackson's, written several years ago by teachers Mary Ann Stamp, Barbara Randolph and Brenda Woemmel, now retired.

Beginning teachers and mentors meet four times throughout the year for training sessions conducted by the district.

Half of the day is spent observing classrooms.

Fisher-Reed realizes the Jackson program is a work in progress. Teachers have complained about too much paperwork being required and not enough time to meet, especially at the secondary level where teachers may not have the same planning period.

But Eftink sees the value in the program, especially compared to last year.

"It's not that it wasn't good. It just wasn't good enough," she said.

lbavolek@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 123