The views of 46 mentors of first-year teachers were obtained regarding practices that they viewed as essential for their success in mentoring teachers. Specifically, they were queried about teacher involvement/support, staff development, administrative support, and resource materials. Almost all of the mentor teachers believed a teacher-mentoring program that had well-defined goals was absolutely essential to the retention of beginning teachers. Slightly over half, 56.6%, of the mentor teachers considered that staff development that provided strategies to serve students in special populations better was absolutely essential to the retention of beginning teachers. Mentors commented that the most difficult part of their duty were scheduling conflicts with the mentee, little support from administration, and no guidelines or training in what they were expected to do. Additional comments made by mentors consisted of the need for more time for the new teacher to grow professionally with less emphasis on TAKS scores. They also stated that standardized state testing was hurting schools because too much time was being spent on student test scores. ACCESS FULL MANUSCIPT HERE: http://cnx.org/content/m18056/latest/
