A: Adapting

Michael Baker, an instructional coach at AAHS, facilitates the New Teacher (NT) squad along with teachers Jaclyn Flick and Joseph Falger. 

“The [New Teacher] squad is made up of teachers who are in their first three years of teaching or perhaps have taught more than three years, but came from a different district. It’s almost like a mini-induction program,” Baker said. “There are currently about 35 teachers on the squad.”

The New Teacher squad has existed for over ten years, allowing new teachers to adapt more easily to AAHS’ environment.

“We hope that members of the NT squad have a smooth transition into working here at Altoona Area High School. We try to answer all of the questions that they have and try to predict some of the issues that they might face to prepare them for how to handle a conference, how to call off and what different types of sick days one can use, how to plan lessons, and—very important for those new to the district—a portfolio that they have to keep,” Baker said. “We do a lot of work especially in the third year with the portfolio.”

The electronic portfolio helps the district observe teachers’ behavior and allows new teachers to be considered for tenure.

“As part of what teachers do every year, as part of our observations, we have to have an electronic portfolio,” Baker said. “For new teachers, at the end of their third year, in order for them to be considered for what’s called tenure, which makes their job in essence, unless they do something terribly wrong, a permanent job, they have to show their progress over the three years. So those first three years in the portfolio are part of how the district decides to offer tenure to the teachers.”

The squad meets once a month on the Wednesday following the faculty meeting. Baker believes this is helpful to the teachers so that questions about new, unfamiliar things discussed at the faculty meeting can be answered.

“It’s very beneficial to get the perspectives of those that are on the squad because we often talk in education about what’s called the curse of knowledge. So the longer you do a job, the more you know about it, you forget the things that maybe new people don’t know. We just assume that they know it,” Baker said. “Working with them, the questions they ask really helps all of the facilitators think about what it was like when we started out and the questions we had. That’s very helpful because it also helps us be better colleagues and co-workers.”