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Introduced Version Senate Bill 652 History

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Key: Green = existing Code. Red = new code to be enacted
Senate Bill No. 652

(By Senators Wells and Plymale)

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[Introduced March 20, 2009; referred to the Committee Education; and then to the Committee on Finance.]

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A BILL to amend and reenact §18A-3-2b of the Code of West Virginia, 1931, as amended, relating to teacher induction; teacher mentor stipend; enforcement of teacher mentor provisions; teacher mentor selection; limited authority to select teacher from a different school; and summer academy for beginning teachers.

Be it enacted by the Legislature of West Virginia:

That §18A-3-2b of the Code of West Virginia, 1931, as amended, be amended and reenacted to read as follows:

ARTICLE 3. TRAINING, CERTIFICATION, LICENSING, PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT.

§18A-3-2b. Beginning teacher internships.

(a) Every person to whom a professional teaching certificate is awarded after January 1, 1992, shall successfully complete a beginning teacher internship program under the provisions of this section, except such persons who were awarded a professional teaching certificate on the basis of at least five years teaching experience in another state. The amendments to this section passed during the 2009 regular session of the Legislature become effective for the school year beginning July 1, 2009.
The beginning teacher internship program is a school based program intended to provide appropriate staff development activities and supervision to beginning teachers to assure their competency for licensure to teach in the public schools of this state. The beginning teacher internship program shall consist of the following components:
(1) A professional support team comprised of the following:
(A)
The school principal, who shall be the chair of the professional support team;
(B) A member of the county professional staff development council; and
(C) An experienced classroom teacher at the school, subject to subsection (e) of this section, who teaches the same or similar subject and grade level as the beginning teacher, who is selected in accordance with subsection (d) of this section and who shall serve as a mentor for the beginning teacher;
(2) An orientation program to be conducted prior to the beginning of the instructional term, but within the employment term, supervised by the mentor teacher;
(3) The scheduling of joint planning periods for the mentor and beginning teacher throughout the school year;
(4) Mentor observation of the classroom teaching skills of the beginning teacher for at least one hour per week during the first half of the school year and which may be reduced at the discretion of the mentor to one hour every two weeks during the second half of the school year;
(5) Weekly meetings between the mentor and the beginning teacher at which the mentor and the beginning teacher discuss the performance of the beginning teacher and any needed improvements, which meetings may be reduced at the discretion of the mentor to biweekly meetings during the second half of the school year;
(6) Monthly meetings of the professional support team to discuss the performance of the beginning teacher which meetings may include all mentor members of all professional support teams at the school if helpful in the judgment of the participants;
(7) In-service professional development programs provided through the professional development project of the center for professional development for beginning teachers and for mentors both of which will be held in the first half of the school year;
(8) The provision of necessary release time from regular duties for the mentor teacher, as agreed to by the principal and the mentor teacher, and a stipend of at least six hundred dollars $1,500 for the mentor teacher for duties as a mentor teacher; and
(9) A final evaluation of the performance of the beginning teacher completed by the principal on a form developed by the state board. of education
(b) The final evaluation form shall be submitted by the principal to the county school superintendent and shall include one of the following recommendations:
(1) Full professional status: A recommendation of full professional status indicates that the beginning teacher has successfully completed the internship program and in the judgment of the principal has demonstrated competence as a professional educator;
(2) Continuing internship status: A recommendation of continuing internship status indicates that in the judgment of the principal the beginning teacher requires further supervision and further employment in the district should be conditioned upon successful completion of an additional year under a beginning teacher internship program; or
(3) Discontinue employment: A recommendation to discontinue employment indicates that in the judgment of the principal the beginning teacher has completed two years of employment under supervision in a beginning teacher internship program, but has not demonstrated competence as a professional educator and will not benefit from further supervised employment in the district.
(c) The Legislature finds that there is inconsistent compliance with the requirements of this section. Therefore, in order to enforce the provisions of this section:
(1) Each county shall apply to the State Superintendent for the funds to pay the stipend to each teacher mentor, and distribution of those funds to each county is conditional pursuant to this subsection;
(2) The State Superintendent shall develop an electronic form that allows each member of the professional support team and the beginning teacher to document compliance with this section. This electronic form shall be an online form accessible through the Internet, and is intended to be a simple and efficient form to complete;
(3) The State Superintendent shall review at least a representative sample of the forms from each county and make a determination as to the degree of compliance with the teacher mentor requirements. The review shall include a check of the responses of the beginning teacher and each member of the professional support team supporting that beginning teacher to ensure the responses are consistent. If there are any inconsistent responses found among a beginning teacher and any members of the professional support team supporting that beginning teacher, the State Superintendent shall investigate;
(4) If the State Superintendent makes a determination that there was substantial noncompliance with the requirements of this section to the degree that beginning teachers employed by a county board derived almost no benefit from the teacher mentor program for any two of the last five years, the superintendent shall not distribute any of the stipend funds to that county the year after the second determination of substantial noncompliance was made.
(5) If the State Superintendent finds either substantial noncompliance or a lessor degree of noncompliance for any single year, he or she shall take less harsh action as he or she considers appropriate.
(d) In selecting a teacher mentor, the following criteria shall be given equal weight:
(1) Seniority;
(2) Whether the teacher has expertise in the same subject matter as the beginning teacher;
(3) Whether the teacher has previous experience instructing or supervising adults;
(4) Whether the teacher has demonstrated excellence when working outside the classroom in the school or community;
(5) Whether the teacher holds National Board for Professional Teaching Standards certification; and
(6) Whether the teacher holds the Master Mentor Teacher Advanced Credential or the Mentor Teacher Advance Credential created by state board rule.
(e) Although subsection (a) of this section requires a mentor teacher to be assigned to the same school as the beginning teacher he or she is mentoring, if no qualified teachers are employed at the school to mentor a beginning teacher, notwithstanding subsection (a) of this section, an experienced classroom teacher may be selected from another school within the county or outside the county to mentor the beginning teacher. To the extent possible, innovative solutions shall be used to overcome the geographic problems associated with selecting a teacher from a different school. These innovative solutions may include communication through telephone and e-mails, observing classroom instruction through live or recorded video and other innovative methods of overcoming the geographic problems.
(f) The Center for Professional Development shall make available to each beginning teacher a three week summer academy after his or her first year of teaching beginning with the summer after the school year beginning July 1, 2009. The academy shall at least include instruction on classroom management, including managing disruptive students. Although enrollment in the academy is voluntary for the beginning teachers, those beginning teachers who complete the academy after their first year of teaching shall receive three hours of credit toward the six semester hours of approved credit required as a condition of certificate renewal pursuant to section three of this article. The Center for Professional Development may charge a fee for enrolling in the academy, but may not charge any amount more than necessary to cover the cost of the academy.

NOTE: The purpose of this bill is to increase the stipend paid to mentor teachers; create a mechanism to enforce the teacher mentor requirements; set forth the criteria for the selection of teacher mentors; allow teacher mentors to be selected from a different school if a qualified teacher is not available in the same school the beginning teacher is assigned to; and to create a summer academy for beginning teachers after their first year of teaching.

Strike-throughs indicate language that would be stricken from the present law, and underscoring indicates new language that would be added.
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