Peoria Standard

Jason Parsons, director of curriculum at the Canton School District, showed during a May 16 virtual meeting that the district is expanding its mentoring program for teachers new to the profession.

The Illinois State Board of Education, with a $6.5 million federal grant for pandemic relief and aid, partnered with the Illinois Education Association and the Illinois Federation of Teachers to create this free program.

Mentor teachers, who will receive a stipend for their time, are matched with the newer teachers by the content of their classes. The program will also include a building mentor for each new teacher, someone who is in the same school building, and who can guide them in district and system specifics.

“This program is at no cost to us,” Parsons said during the virtual board meeting. “A new teacher, first, second or third year, would be paired with a virtual instructional coach just for content mentoring is what that is, and then they would also be paired with a building mentor that’s somebody who chooses to take on this role in the building.”

“Our mentoring program that we still allocate with grant funds would help support any new administrators and any new teachers just to our district because this program does not fund that,” Parsons added. “This is only new — first, second, third — to the profession. We still have teachers coming from 14 years from other districts, we still want to offer that we’re going to use our grant-funded mentoring program to help support those folks as well. Just because they need to get used to the ins and outs of Canton School District.”

Nancy Latham, a longtime educator and researcher, told the Chicago Tribune that she’s worried about how understaffed Illinois public schools will handle the approximately 1.8 million students returning in the upcoming academic year.

“Staffing is a significant challenge for us, and (shortages) are trending a little bit higher than they were last year,” Tony Sanders, superintendent of Elgin-based School District Unit 46, said to the Tribune.

This program comes after the COVID-19 pandemic has pushed public schools to face educator shortages in many positions, from full-time teachers to substitutes. WQAD 8 reported Illinois schools had approximately 4,000 unfilled jobs, of which teaching roles made up the majority.

“These vacancies are concentrated in hard-to-staff schools and subjects,” Carmen Ayala, state superintendent of education, said to WIFR 23. “Our low-income, bilingual and special-education students have the least access to the teachers they need to grow and thrive. We also have a severe shortage of substitute teachers and need an additional 2,400 paraprofessionals to fully meet our students’ needs in the classrooms.”

The mentoring includes monthly seminars, asynchronous modules, office hours, small group and discussion sessions and a library of free resources to draw from. Mentors receive payment based on how many new teachers they mentor, anywhere from two to nine each year. Administrators from each participating district oversee their members and their involvement.