A Mentor’s Story
Maria has an Associate Degree in early childhood development and had been teaching preschoolers for six years. She worked in a typical child care center where the teachers were well trained and most had been in the field of early childhood education for many years. Maria and her colleagues were some of the highest paid teachers in the area. Nevertheless, Maria makes only $16,000 per year. Her center, like 73% of other work sites in the field, offers only limited health insurance at best, making it difficult for teachers to remain in the field. Her site averages an annual staff turnaround of 26%. As a result of the regular loss of staff, Maria is having to train more and more new teachers at her site, only to see many of them leave just a few years later.
Maria heard of the California Early Childhood Mentor Program from one of her former community college instructors. She learned how, in this program, her salary would be enhanced through compensation for training, she would receive recognition as a professional, be provided with additional training and become involved in career development opportunities: all important incentives to stay in the field. Maria's first step in becoming a Mentor was to enroll in The Mentor Teacher Class at her local community college. From the class Maria refined her supervision skills, learned an objective quality assessment tool to apply to her classroom and evaluated her role as an advocate for her profession. Based on the assessment tool, Maria was able to make needed quality improvements both in her classroom and to her center as a whole. Staff responsibilities in Maria's classroom were reorganized so that parents and children were greeted on arrival and pick up. Maria arranged additional staff training in supervising children's creative activities which staff throughout her center took advantage of and an adult meeting area was found for all staff that was separate from the center's office space. Another teacher in Maria's class found that the changes in quality to her classroom would involve petitioning the board of directors with a revised budget that would include funding for in-service training as well as a weekly staff meeting to better coordinate the individual needs of the children with classroom quality improvements.
Maria submitted an application to the local Mentor Selection Committee and was approved for a site review. Her classroom was visited by two Selection Committee Members, one a center director and the other a college instructor. Using the Early Childhood Environment Rating Scale revised by Clifford and Harms, each committee member and Maria evaluated her classroom and center. Maria met with the committee members to review their ratings and present hers. All three parties consolidated their ratings on one form and submitted it to the full eight member committee for the final decision. Maria was certified as a Mentor in her classroom for three years!