Page 8 - Journal 89-3 Full

New Educator Support and Training:

Establishing an Ongoing System of Support

By Tia Neal and Gwile Paul Freeman

Early-career educators, like any precious resource, should be nurtured and given multiple layers
of support. One way that schools and school districts can deliberately provide support to early-
career educators is by ensuring that they have an ongoing teacher-induction program that
provides information not only regarding district policies and procedures but also about valuable
strategies and tools to help teachers experience success within their classrooms. However,
one of the most valuable resources that can be provided to early-career educators is other
educators. Through a teacher-induction program, members of The Delta Kappa Gamma Society
International (DKG) can provide additional layers of support for teachers who are new to their
classrooms. Members can work with their local school districts to develop successful teacher-
induction programs that make a lasting impact for early-career educators. This article describes
the New Educator Support and Training (NEST) program of the Catahoula Parish School
District in Louisiana, in which a small, rural school district is teaming with DKG, as well as other
partners, to ensure that its early-career educators have the support they need to be successful.

s teachers begin careers in the field of education, they enter their classrooms from
Aone of two pathways: as certified graduates of a teacher-preparation program or
as uncertified graduates in a field outside of education who must attend an alternative
teacher-preparation program to become certified. Oftentimes, regardless of their
certification pathway, as many as 16% of teachers nationally (Carver-Thomas, 2022)
enter the profession grossly underprepared to support students in real-world classroom
situations. Moreover, since the COVID-19 pandemic, approximately 600,000 teachers
in the United States have left the profession (National Education Association, 2022),
creating teacher shortages in core academic areas as well as in special education
(United States Department of Education, 2022). Such a drastic decline of educators in
the field leaves less experienced teachers at the helm while school districts search for
ways to support and prepare them for their careers.
When teachers are prepared to enter their classrooms and educate their students,
both teaching and learning can take place because of that preparation. According to
Wong and Wong (2018), “It is the teacher and how the teacher is trained that produces
student achievement gains” (p. 315). Logically, then, training should continue beyond
the teacher-preparation programs and into the school districts where teachers are
employed to help improve teacher practice and positively impact student learning
(Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, 2020). To
ensure that teachers are prepared to navigate through the uncharted waters of being
a first-year teacher, school districts must implement teacher-induction programs that
train, support, and retain new teachers. Although the information in this article is
specific to one school district, we provide suggestions that school districts could
replicate to support early-career educators.

Developing a Program for Supporting New Educators
The Catahoula Parish School District (CPSD), located in northeast Louisiana in
the United States of America (USA), provides teachers with ongoing support through

6 The Delta Kappa Gamma Bulletin: International Journal for Professional Educators