Wyandotte Public Schools has made it their mission to promote longevity, community and engagement among new staff in the district with their New Teacher Academy, a program designed to build connections and foster a supportive and inclusive environment for all staff.

The program was developed by a group of Wyandotte staff, who are the four main mentors for the 2024-2025 school year, including the district’s Director of Media, George Purdu, teacher consultant Brenton Petrick, literacy coach Marcella Flores and literacy coach Nicole Riopelle.

This team was part of the Galileo teacher leadership program, tasked with a project to do or facilitate something that would be impactful to the entire district.

Noting the influx of retirements among teachers, the team came up with the idea to create a program that would promote retention and support among all new staff, from classroom teachers to speech therapists to occupational therapists and more.

“When we developed this plan, we presented it to the central office superintendent and the directors at the board office and they were really supportive of it and recognized the need for this as well,” Petrick said.

The team recognized the competitiveness of the teaching environment, and that teachers have the opportunity to bounce around to different districts, so they wanted to create something that would incentivize teachers to want to stay in Wyandotte.

To kick off the program, new teachers received a survey asking how their first year went, what supports would have helped them and what struggles and opportunities they experienced.

“We started by gathering data and then asking teachers things like, ‘How was this helpful, how can you transfer this learning to your classroom or profession and what else can we do to support you?’” said Flores, adding that there is an element of fluidity to the program depending on the needs of the teachers.

The New Teacher Academy meets on a bimonthly basis at a different location and each meeting has a different theme. The last meeting was held at the Bacon Library, where the entire team took a tour of the building and the museum across the street.

“We’re trying to break out to different spots at every meeting, introducing them to people and places they may never visit outside of their normal building,” Purdu said, explaining that networking like this can provide new staff lifelines of support in the future.

One main goal of the program is to prevent some of the things that negatively affect school staff and can even lead people to leave the profession in general, like burnout and feeling unsupported.

“We’re really trying to find things that benefit everybody,” Riopelle said. “We want to help inform them so they feel like they’re a part and not just flying through their first year not knowing what’s going on.”

Petrick said that while it does cost the district quite a bit of money to be able to facilitate this program, they are in turn investing in not only the new employees, but the entire district and Wyandotte community as a whole.

For more information about Wyandotte Public Schools, visit www.wyandotte.org.