by Julie Dodd
JEA Mentor Committee co-chair
The latest issue of JEA Mentoring Matters is available — Mentoring_Matters_Spring 2013
JEA Mentoring Matters is published twice a year to coincide with the Journalism Education Association/National Scholastic Press Association conventions.
The spring JEA/NSPA convention is in San Francisco, April 25-28.
Thanks to Linda Barrington for another informative issue.
This issue of Mentoring Matters takes on two critical topics.
Success of the JEA Mentoring Program
In the cover story, Peggy Gregory discusses the Mentoring Program and the impact it has had on training quality advisers. In the six years the program has been in operation, we’ve trained 44 mentors. Those mentors have worked with 267 new teachers in 17 states.
A major goal of the Mentoring Program is to help keep good new media advisers in the classroom. Nationally, the turnover rate of new teachers is high — with 46 percent leaving teaching within the first five years.
Of the new teachers in the JEA Mentoring Program, 75 percent are still in the classroom after five years. [Those who leave the program typically have done so because the journalism program in their schools is eliminated or because they have lost their job in school budget cuts.]
Peggy includes insights from mentors, mentees and Mentor Committee members on what makes the JEA Mentoring Program very different from the typical “buddy mentor.”
Financial challenges for the Mentor Program
Linda Barrington discusses the steps the Mentor Program is working on to maintain the core values of the program but make major budget cuts — responding to major budget cuts that JEA is making to its overall budget.
Linda also recognizes the many sponsors who have provided support for the Mentoring Program.
The Mentor Committee has been working with other JEA Board members to try and reach compromises so that the many important JEA programs, including the Mentoring Program, can continue.