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Appendix A
Supporting interns and grade-level curriculum collaboration
In her description of the classroom environment, Mrs. Taylor shows how she supports her interns. She said,

I’ve got to be able and flexible to kind of go back and forth and help where I’m needed. I can identify
areas that I need to give more help in and less help and the interns are both different. They both have
their own needs. And so, you know, me just being able to bounce back and forth and do what I can.
Physically the setup has to work. This year has worked really nice because our rooms are connected by
like, a little space.
Mrs. Taylor from District C said the administration ensured other people in the building were aware of the new
program and how it would function. She said, “We Zoomed, and we met with the Paras a few times to just make
sure that they understood, you know, we’re all here. We’re not throwing everybody into this, and we’re gonna
make it work. I think that has helped a lot.”
Although interns and teachers had the autonomy to implement specific strategies in their classrooms, they
initially worked together to consider the requirements in the curriculum. Mrs. Taylor’s description below
showed what was exhibited not only at her school but also described by the mentor and intern participants in
District D and E:
We sit down on grade level and kind of break up and talk about what’s the focus this week. We have a
reading series we sort of pick from but we kind of have a groove of what [it] is that we have. We know
what the phonics is for the week, and we [have] resources to pick for that, teach that. So they have some
say in what [they] teach and how they teach it, but not the ultimate.
Mrs. Cross’s example of going to administrators and telling them, “[Sarah’s] an intern, but it’s different than
your traditional student teaching, like y’all are training her to be hired as soon as she graduates” reminded them
of the roles and expectations of the program. This example demonstrated how mentors were willing to trust the
process of preparing the candidates as the teacher of record.
Sarah’s mentor, Mrs. Cross, said, “When I start back at my halftime position, I’m still going to be coming into
her room two to three days a week, answering questions, helping her, whatever.”
Mrs. Cross had an experience where she had to inform the administration what Sarah’s role was in the program.
She explained to them how Sarah was supposed to be treated like the teacher of record. She said,
My school didn’t really understand that. And after about a week of them coming to me for everything I
finally went to my administrator and said, ‘Look, if we need to have a meeting with [University 3] or
whatever, we need to get on the same page. [Sarah’s] an intern, but it’s different than your traditional
student teaching, like y’all are training her to be hired as soon as she graduates. And this is to prepare
her for it.’ And they were like, ‘Oh, we just didn’t understand that, you know, no, that’s fine. That’s fine’.

Appendix B
Supportive Environment
Allison contributed, “We met with the grade level before school even started, and kind of gave them a rundown
of what this was, what to expect from us.”
Sarah, an intern in District D, said she appreciated it when an administrator noticed she was having difficulty
getting a mathematical concept across to a student. The administrator used his mathematics teaching
background to show the intern a new strategy. Sarah explained:

They’re very supportive. I feel like I can talk to him about anything. And it helps sometimes to just when
I’m teaching them our lesson to see somebody come in there and sit down and start working with a kid,
or “Hey, let me tell you something real quick. Let me show him this.” That is so helpful to us to know
that like they’re on our side. Not only do they care about the kids, they really do care about us, because
I feel like a lot of teachers don’t get that. And now more than ever is a time that teachers need the sup-
port from administration.
Sarah said, “I can sit down and have a conversation with them [admin]. I know what’s expected of me.”

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