Mentorships provide long term value for Valley students

Recently, questions have been raised regarding a grant that the Mat-Su Education Association (MSEA) received from the National Education Association for the development and expansion of a teacher mentorship program that aims to pair new educators with veteran colleagues in the first years of their career. This is good for early career educators, good for students, and ultimately good for the Mat-Su Borough School District (MSBSD) as new educators who are provided mentors tend to stay in their positions longer. This reduces the costly annual process of educator recruitment which ultimately lands on us, as taxpayers.

MSBSD, like every other school district, has had to balance the constitutional mandate of providing an education for every child, with the reality of static or reduced budgets. In essence, doing more with less. MSEA’s grant of $674,010 is an effort to supplement ongoing district mentor programs to fully prepare more early career educators for the challenges of the classroom.

As part of the grant, MSEA also focused on addressing some of the external forces that impact too many Valley students. In 2021, 63% of Valley schools received Title 1 funding from the federal government. Title 1 schools are classified as having “high numbers or high percentages of children from low-income families.” Title 1 schools tend to have much higher educator turnover rates than their non-Title 1 equivalents. MSEA’s grant attempts to tackle this issue head on by providing mentorships to educators entering Title 1 schools so they’re well equipped to provide excellent learning opportunities in sometimes challenging environments.

While the funding for this program comes from the National Education Association, it has been fully developed, written, and implemented by Mat-Su teachers with the cooperation of MSBSD.

There are no mandates or requirements beyond reaching MSEA’s goal of increasing teacher retention by 20% in the 31 Title 1 schools of MSBSD.

The term “social justice” does appear in the grant, and for good reason. Last year, 62% of new district hires sought additional training on “social justice” learning. MSEA has found that those responses were overwhelmingly from educators at Title 1 schools. In terms of the grant, MSEA interpreted “social justice” as ensuring that all students have access to high-quality education regardless of socioeconomic status. As a result, a portion of the mentorship program is dedicated to navigating educational environments where poverty is highly prevalent. Like any job, an employee will perform best when they’re properly trained.

As state dollars for teacher mentorships have dried up in recent years, every district in Alaska has had to fend for themselves, often to the detriment of professional growth for newer teachers. This grant is an attempt to put MSBSD on a sustainable path towards mentorships for all new educators entering the district. It’s that simple. There are no ominous undertones or political agendas to encourage educators to teach anything beyond district-approved curriculum. We simply want the best possible teacher for every single student.

MSEA is not alone in this effort. Other partners in this work include the University of Alaska Anchorage, the Matanuska Susitna Health Foundation, ROCKS, the Alaska Department of Education and Early Childhood Development, the Alaska State Mentorship Project, the Matanuska Susitna Borough Chamber of Commerce, and the Mat-Su Borough School District. We are all in this together because we want every single child in our public schools to have a great education.

Dianne Shibe is the president of the Mat-Su Education Association.