Beginning July, 2009, the Office of Teacher Quality will be converting all teacher mentoring information management to a new, completely automated online system (ATLAS). The administrator mentoring process will also be online, but information for administrators will be shared at the Beginning Administrator training in July. There will be more information regarding the responsibilities of Project Directors at the Project Directors Update Meetings at the beginning of the school year. The dates for the update meetings will be announced when set.
Pathwise trainers should be recalibrated at any one of three training sessions: the first on May 26, 2009, at the Educational Cooperative in Hope; the second on May 27, 2009 at the Holiday Inn Downtown in Ft. Smith; and the third on May 29, 2009 at the Holiday Inn Airport in Little Rock. All trainings will be from 10:00 am until 2:00 pm. Attendees are to bring a laptop computer to the Trainer Recalibration if possible. If not, sharing will be possible.
Trainers who have been recalibrated will be prepared to recalibrate mentors for the 2009-2010 school year. School districts are to examine data from the last three years and determine an average number of mentors needed per school year. Each school district should train enough mentors to meet the three year average. Districts having an increase in the number of novice teachers should consider increasing the number of mentors trained. Only mentors who attend the recalibration will mentor in the 2009-2010 school year. Recalibration dates are available at each local Educational Service Co-op. The previous database of trained mentors is obsolete and will be eliminated. The new mentor database will only be populated with profiles of mentors who have been recalibrated. A teacher will not be able to enter the database to register as a mentor without the code approval of a trainer.
All teachers attending a three-day Pathwise Mentor Training conducted by a recalibrated Pathwise Trainer will not have to attend a mentor recalibration. Information given at the recalibration will be part of the three-day training.