The Kentucky Teacher Voice
Opportunity Access Network News - October, 2018
Teacher Feature
Dana Lee Thomas: KY SENT: Support for New Teachers. September 16, 2018
Bill Gates once said, Students deserve great teachers. And teachers deserve the support they need to be great. For the past thirty-four years new teachers across the Commonwealth of Kentucky have been mentored through the Kentucky Teacher Internship Program. Funding for this valuable program was suspended this year. With the absence of a state-wide teacher internship program, new teachers have to individually seek support during their early years of teaching. Fortunately a new initiative has been developed to support, connect and mentor new Kentucky teachers.
KY SENT (Supporting and Elevating New Teachers) is an initiative developed by a group of Kentucky Hope Street Fellows. With the recently launched website and Twitter account, KY SENT is offering new teachers a variety of resources to guide them throughout the school year. This initiative was developed by teachers and is for new teachers who are in their first five years of instruction. It is designed around the Kentucky Framework for Teaching and houses a plethora of resources. The personalized resources will help to elevate and educate teachers, all the while connecting them to educational support agencies across the state.
One prominent feature of KY SENT are the virtual engagement sessions. Twice monthly highly-qualified educators will offer free online professional learning sessions. New teachers can register for these sessions on the KY SENT website. School districts mayalso opt for these sessions to count for professional learning credit.
Additionally, KY SENT will offer mentoring for new teachers based on their educational cooperative region. KY SENT coaches will connect new teachers to a mentoring teacher in their area. The role of a KY SENT mentor will be to provide instructional support, encouragement and optimism for new educators. More importantly, this collaboration is a great opportunity for veteran teachers to ignite their own passion for teaching and learning, all the while growing new teachers across the Commonwealth.
Lastly, this initiative has a section on their website for new teachers to post questions. The KY SENT coaches will promptly answer questions and provide additional resources, if needed. The coaches are there to support and offer advice in an effort to promote continuous learning for new teachers. Questions are confidential and are between new teachers and the KY SENT coaches.
The KY SENT website was established as a support structure for both new teachers and school districts. Districts may use the site within their own mentoring plans. The end result will be a gateway of professional learning and growth for new teachers. Kentucky teachers will grow their own new teachers and Kentucky students will be the beneficiaries. Across the bluegrass state, students deserve great teachers and great teachers deserve boundless support.
https://sites.google.com/hopestreetgroup.org/newteachers/home?authuser=1
Bulletin Board
Data Collection 2018
Focus Groups
https://hopestreetgroup.org/teacher-fellows/kyteacherfellows/
HSG Annual Survey
I encourage you to join the Hope Street Group Kentucky Teacher Fellows in their task to collect educator perspectives on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Training Prevalence and Needs in Educator Preparatory Programs and K12 public schools districts throughout Kentucky. While previous data collections have focused on gathering teacher perception data only, this collection targets all certified and classified staff that work in education, including building and district level administrators, counselors, teachers, and any classified staff.
The opinions you share are instrumental to informing education policy here in Kentucky. Your responses are anonymous and the results of the survey are shared with KDE, KEA, the Prichard Committee and other stakeholders in education throughout the Commonwealth.
Take the survey today!
https://www.surveygizmo.com/s3/4512201/KYFALL18
It will only take a few minutes to complete and the perspectives you share will be instrumental in informing education policy here in Kentucky.. The survey is open until October 31st."
ECET2KY
October 19-20 Prestonsburg
November 2-3 Covington
November 16-17 Morehead
December 7-8 Madisonville
January 18-19 Berea
March 1-2 Bardstown
To register or send a presentation proposal go to:
Education Editorial
Joshua DeWar: Expanding cultural competence among state’s educators is key to academic success. Aug 27, 2018
Bridget Powell: Educators Can Make a Difference in Mental Health of students. August 28, 2018
Stan Torzewski: Educators & Diversity: How Teachers Can Tackle Implicit Bias & Create More Equitable Learning Environments. September 24, 2018
Where Are They Now?
Heidi Givens, NBCT, NIC
Teacher of the Deaf
Bryan Station Middle School
Fayette County Public Schools
Phone: (859) 381-3288 ext. 40461
Twitter: @heidigasl
Interviewed by Allison Slone, HSG Design Team
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1vrIZkFFa_N8cp-q1YLGehrYX7ELquU0aEOPsOU0O2AU/edit?usp=sharing
Kentucky State University News
Kentucky State University chosen as a site for the White House Initiative on Historically Black Colleges and Universities Competitiveness Tour.
About Us
Email: info@hopestreetgroup.org
Website: www.hopestreetgroup.org
Location: PO Box 53098 Washington, DC 20009
Phone: 000-000-0000
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/hopestreetgroup/
Twitter: @HSG_KY