Program Targets Reading Skills

The Coeur d’Alene School District is starting a $521,100 grant-funded teacher mentor program designed to improve elementary children’s reading skills.

The district will receive $173,700 annually for three years from the J.A. and Kathryn Albertson Foundation to develop a network of teacher leader models.

A “master” teacher will be identified at each of the district’s nine elementary schools. Those teachers will serve as mentors for first-year teacher interns, who will coteach with the master teacher and assume full classroom responsibilities for 20 percent of each day, freeing the master teacher to train other staff members in effective teaching strategies.

All nine master teachers will meet monthly to plan consistent staff training. Each master teacher will coordinate a cluster group of teachers to pull out at-risk students for concentrated study time in reading.

The foundation money pays the cost of the interns and extends the master teacher’s contracts by two weeks for planning. Interns will be certified teachers and will be paid two-thirds of a beginning teacher’s salary. , DataTimes