The board soon will vote on whether to require schools to provide mentoring to new teachers. So far, it's been up to the principal. Even so, some mentors and mentees ended up with conflicting schedules and no time to meet or to visit each other's classrooms. In August, all principals were to have attended a mentoring program workshop that included advice on scheduling. Only 65 percent of principals who participated last year thought that teachers and mentors had enough time to meet, according to Tozer.
Principals are aware of the problem.
All the mentoring programs in the nation on this scale are relatively new. Independent coverage of Chicago school reform since 1989.