Investing in New Teacher Success 

With 87 schools, serving more than 59,000 students in mostly urban settings across nine states and a teacher turnover rate of more than 800 per year, National Heritage Academies (NHA) called upon educational leadership studies assistant professor Gloria McDaniel-Hall and her colleague Jessica Angle to help the network overcome its substantial teacher attrition challenge. Together, they are designing a New Teacher Development and Mentoring initiative to provide new teachers with the preservice and ongoing support they need to be successful. 

McDaniel- Hall and Angle began their work by bringing school and department leaders together to review and discuss the content and delivery of the network’s new teacher orientation. “An integral component to the success of the program thus far is consistent, system-wide collaboration-- a component that was historically absent until now,” said McDaniel-Hall. As a result, the initial orientation has shifted from a single, centralized large-group training focused on curriculum to multiple regional trainings that are devoted to strategies centered around building effective climate and culture as well as effective methods for building positive relationships.

McDaniel-Hall also launched a new teacher mentoring pilot, providing ongoing coaching and mentoring with teachers in the network’s Atlanta school. Pilot results will inform mentoring protocols that will be applied in schools across the network.