Grant Wood AEA helps local school districts retain staff by providing mentors to new teachers

Gabby Granadillo (left), Grant Wood Area Education Agency induction coach and mentor, works with Melanie Smith, a middle and high school language arts teacher in Smith’s Central City classroom. (Grant Wood AEA)

CEDAR RAPIDS — Grant Wood Area Education Agency is helping Eastern Iowa school districts retain teachers by providing mentors to new teachers.

This year, 246 new teachers in 17 school districts — including Cedar Rapids, College Community, Linn-Mar and Mount Vernon — are participating in the mentoring program.

The program accelerates teaching practices and provides a positive impact on student learning, said Kim Owen, the program’s AEA regional administrator.

Since its inception during the 2013-14 school year, the mentoring and induction program has numbers to back up its merit:

82 percent of teachers in the mentoring program have continued teaching in Iowa after five years, compared to the statewide retention average of 69 percent. That retention has become even more important because the pandemic has led to teacher shortages.
National data, which includes the Grant Wood AEA consortium, shows that students taught by new teachers with mentors are two to five months academically ahead of students whose new teachers received only traditional training.
94 percent of the beginning teachers in the AEA program said they are “quite confident” or “extremely confident” they can implement effective teaching strategies with their students.

Mentors spend one to two hours a week in the classroom with new teachers.

They coach the beginning teacher on ways to improve classroom instruction and better support their students. They encourage new teachers to set goals and self-reflect. And they build the beginner’s confidence.

Gabby Granadillo, a mentor for new teachers in the Cedar Rapids and College Community districts, noted schools look different than they did two years ago before the pandemic.

She’s been working with teachers to build their capacity for teaching the social-emotional skills students need to be successful academically.

“The power of coaching is the teacher is driving the work,” Granadillo said. “The coach brings other perspectives (to the classroom) that maybe the teacher doesn’t have. It’s a collaboration.”

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Melanie Smith, a middle and high school language arts teacher in Central City, was one of the new teachers Granadillo mentored.

Smith said it was wonderful to have a mentor and a sounding board for ideas she could use in her classroom.

Granadillo also worked with Smith to develop a social-emotional curriculum.

“At the start of the school year, I thought I wanted to work on education standards,” Smith said, adding that she quickly realized students were unfamiliar with being in a classroom.

“I make sure I am very clear about what I’m expecting of a student and don’t just assume they know how to behave in a classroom,” Smith said. “It’s nice to have Gabby to let me know it’s OK to take this step-by-step.”

Comments: (319) 398-8411; grace.king@thegazette.com