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Education Reform a "Huge Support" for New Teachers

John Pemble/IPR
Southeast Polk 2nd grade teacher Madison Fontana

Teachers, administrators, and students at Southeast Polk Schools Monday sang the praises of Iowa’s new Teacher Leadership and Compensation program, known as TLC.  

Teachers get paid more when they take on leadership roles to help other teachers.  

Madison  Fontana teaches second grade.   She’s in her second year of teaching and she says she’s getting more help this year :

“ It’s been a huge support system for new teachers,” Fontana says.   “We have someone to go to whether it be the instructional coaches or the model teachers.”

Fontana says Southeast Polk encouraged collaboration before TLC.

“There’s just more support this year for all the levels in the building,” Fontana says.   “Model teachers and instructional coaches are coming into our classrooms.”   

Southeast Polk’s share of the new 50 million dollar appropriation is two-point-two million dollars.   The school is using the money in part to hire new teachers to replace the instructional coaches who are no longer in the classroom.  

Officials say as many as one-fourth of the district’s nearly 500 teachers are in some kind of leadership role.    More schools will participate next year, when the state appropriation will reach 100 million dollars.

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