Teacher Induction and Retention
Milltown Public Schools is committed to recruiting and retaining high quality instructors who provide our students with the professional expertise and dedication to learn and grow in a challenging supportive learning environment. The Administration remains diligent in focusing on the three main areas of teacher retention: professionalism, resilience and salary. Details of these efforts are included in the presentation linked below, along with district data on teacher turnover.
The Administration and Board of Education have implemented various strategies to address the 3 main areas that contribute to teacher retention: salary, professionalism, and resilience.
- The past several MEA contract settlements have increased teacher salaries at or above the county average. The salaries for the teachers are currently competitive, especially for a small district.
- Professionally, teachers are included in a district-wide model based on shared decision making and are provided a great deal of latitude in personal professional development choices. The Superintendent personally meets with each new hire and other teachers throughout the year to check in and make sure that they feel supported and are fulfilled professionally in our schools. The collaborative leadership team model that is in partnership with Rutgers and embeds a shared leadership style that innately values teachers as professionals.
- The lingering effect of the pandemic and a general change in society’s support of educators has had an impact on teachers. The district has contracted with a group that provides resilience coaching for teachers as an additional benefit to assist teachers in overcoming both personal and professional challenges.
- The data collected over the course of the last several years shows that teachers leave Milltown for a wide variety of reasons, and there is no one consistent reason that points to addressing a problem that we are missing. Most staff leave because of a residency move in their personal life with a partner, or a desire to be closer to their home for work, or to advance their career to a position that Milltown would never be able to offer given our size. Salary is not always the driving factor to people resigning and the exit letters often share positive feedback on their experiences. Also, in order to maintain the high quality staff we have, resignations also reflect a conversation with administration about their instructional performance.
Milltown administration and the Board of Education are committed to supporting our staff and welcome any additional input to continue to build capacity and commitment to Milltown Schools among our teachers.
Mentoring Program
Milltown School District welcomes all new teachers during our annual New Staff Orientation in August. Novice teachers who hold a provisional certificate are assigned a mentor teacher, in accordance with state guidelines. Mentors support their novice partners throughout the school year in reaching the goals of the district's Mentoring and Induction Plan. After satisfying district requirements and completing their first year of teaching, the state will award a permanent teaching certificate.
- Instructional Functions: best practices, differentiated instruction, technology, centers, grouping, respect, parent involvement
- Professional Functions: extra curricular involvement, committee work, continuing education
- Personal Qualities: flexibility, cooperation, humor, timeliness, preparation, communication
- Planning: standards-driven, connection to previous knowledge, tiered activities, cross-curricular integration, developmentally appropriate objectives, differentiation of instruction and assessment, various modalities/multiple intelligences are addressed in activities, higher order thinking skills (Bloom's taxonomy)
- Presentation: time on-task, transition, monitoring, feedback, organization and logic of lesson, direct instruction or group work
- Materials: advance preparation, manipulatives, audio/visual, multisensory
- Evaluation: incorporate opportunities for various student responses including oral, written, pair/share, etc., informal assessment, decision-making, probing questions, rubrics, projects
- Atmosphere: learning centers, group roles, enthusiastic, engaging, student-centered, task-oriented
- Communication: clearly stated and understandable objectives, teacher circulation
- Management: clearly posted rules and consequences, praise, routines, redirection
- Goals: professional growth objectives
- Standards: indicate how goals are related to PD standards and administrative recommendations
- Activities: workshops, staff development, committee work, professional days
- PD Hours: professional development hours are valid toward your 100 hours only if related to PIP objectives