Teacher mentoring program celebrates 10 year anniversary

As a student and a journalist, I've found that good mentors make all the difference.

They inspire you. They challenge you. And their advice often is the difference between giving up and toughening up.

The same goes for those in the teaching profession.

Elgin Area School District U-46 and its teachers union announced this week that they are celebrating the 10th anniversary of the teacher mentoring program.

"We know that 30 percent of beginning teachers leave the profession during their first two years, and approximately half of all beginning teachers leave the profession within five years," mentoring program leader Bill DuBois said in a news release. "However, with the proper support and mentoring, we know that new teachers will not only stay in the profession, they will grow professionally."

In the past decade, nearly 1,400 teachers have received mentors, who they work with for the first two years of their tenure at U-46.

Activities include casual one-on-one meetings between mentor and mentee, as well as group professional development sessions.

For the past seven years, the program has used Charlotte Danielson's teaching frameworks, which emphasize using a common language whether talking about planning, developing a learning environment, or instructing students.

Lowrie Elementary School bilingual teacher Denise Pinto was hired by the district in 2004.

"Drowning at the beginning," of her teaching days, she was mentored by Laura Fukuda, a former Sycamore Trails Elementary teacher who is currently a mentoring program leader. Pinto is now a mentor to a new teacher at Sheridan Elementary.

"I"m glad to give back to someone else," she said.

Goals of the program include improving student learning and teacher quality, decreasing staff stress and improving the district's retention rate for new teachers.

Register for ECC's alert system: Devastating shootings at both Northern Illinois University and Virginia Tech have alerted many colleges to the importance of having a strong alert system in place.

At Elgin Community College, students can now register for a new emergency alert system where they will receive text messages if there is a campus emergency. Registration can be completed online at emergency.elgin.edu. Registered cell phones must be capable of recieving text messages. For more information, e-mail phoward@elgin.edu.

Lunch log: At St. Edward Central Catholic High School in Elgin, long gone are the days where students can bluff about their French fry intake.

The school recently implemented the Lunch Box Cafeteria Program, where students uses a debit card system to pay for meals. Through the system, parents can log on and view exactly what was purchased when.

Similar systems are being used at U-46 and Central Community Unit District 301 schools.