As part of an ambitious effort to retain new teachers, the School District of Philadelphia in the fall of 2003 created a cadre of 61 New Teacher Coaches to mentor first-year teachers. At the end of the 2003-04 school year, researchers from Research for Action and from the district’s Office of Research and Evaluation conducted eight one-hour focus groups with 58 of the coaches in order to capture their reflections about their experience during the first year of the initiative. This is an executive summary of the findings.
Findings from the New Teacher Coach Focus Groups – Executive Summary
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