Mastering the art of the field trip — that’s one skill that doesn’t get much attention in college teacher preparation programs.

But it’s an important lesson, stresses Joan Funamura, who recounts how one beginning teacher learned the importance of bringing an extra lunch or two on school excursions.

On her first field trip with her elementary school class, the young teacher didn’t think there might be students who’d forget to bring lunch. Luckily, the teacher had a peer mentor who tagged along and advised her to always bring spare meals on such outings.

By the end of the year, that teacher always brought a few extra sandwiches on field trips, Funamura said.

Funamura manages the mentoring and induction program for schools in the Kalihi, Diamond Head and Hawaii Kai areas. The program is part of a Hawaii Department of Education statewide initiative that aims to decrease turnover in a place where about 55 percent of beginning teachers leave their jobs within their first five years and to breathe new life into retention efforts that, in years past, were inconsistent and disorganized.

It also has the far-reaching goal of making educators more effective, officials say, because teachers are arguably the single most important factor in determining student success.

“We’re hoping to build the capacity from within so that we can perpetuate wonderful teachers and wonderful teaching,” Funamura said.

Research shows that extensive, well-developed mentoring programs — much like the one the Hawaii DOE is trying to achieve — significantly increase job satisfaction, effectiveness and retention of new teachers. A 2004 study by University of Pennsylvania graduate education professor Richard Ingersoll showed that the turnover rate among beginning teachers who participated in a wide range of mentoring and induction activities was 18 percent, compared with a rate of 40 percent among those who hadn’t. Ingersoll recently spoke with Civil Beat about turnover among new Hawaii teachers many of whom move to the mainland after a few years on the job.

Hawaii’s new mentoring program, whose many policies include strict mentor-teacher ratios, seems to be largely modeled after the ones Ingersoll in his research has found most effective. Such programs are becoming more popular across the country, making teaching less of an occupation that, as Ingersoll described it, “cannibalizes its young.”

As part of the Hawaii program, the department places each new teacher, defined as the roughly 3,600 educators within their first three years on the job, with a mentor. A small percentage of the mentors — 35 of them — work in that role full-time, while the vast majority — more than 500 of them — are either teachers or other school staff who voluntarily mentor in addition to their other duties.

The mentors meet one-on-one with first- and second-year teachers for an hour or so every week to discuss classroom observations and any concerns the teachers may have, all of which are kept confidential. Third-year teachers also meet with their mentors, though less regularly. In most cases, a teacher stays with the same mentor for the three-year period.

Officials say the new program, which went into effect across the state last school year, marks a sharp improvement from the piecemeal mentoring services offered in the past. Before, mentorship opportunities were inconsistent across schools and regions, and beginning teachers weren’t required to work with mentors, according to Corinne Kalani, who leads mentoring and induction efforts at schools in the Hilo area.

Regional administrators were in charge of their own mentoring programs, creating a hodgepodge of efforts that were either “hit or miss,” said Kalani, who noted that only three-fourths of beginning teachers in her area took advantage of those services before the new program went into effect.

Now, every new teacher is paired with a mentor. And in the schools Kalani’s in charge of, for example, there’s close to one mentor for each of this year’s 42 beginning teachers.

The new program came to fruition in 2011 as part of the DOE’s seven-year Strategic Plan, which in addition to other goals highlighted mentoring opportunities as a priority. The state also promised in its Race to the Top application to devote some of its $75 million federal grant funding to developing a comprehensive mentoring program built on common, consistent practices and standards.

And that’s in addition to other induction programs, including a Hawaiian culture class for new teachers, workshops on various topics and seminars to help teachers work with students who speak English as a second language.

Mentoring Program Still a Work in Progress

But officials say there’s still a lot of room for improvement. Funamura, for example, said she wants the standards to be more rigorous.

Moreover, the department still struggles to get volunteer mentors on board — a challenge that some teachers say could be overcome if teachers in Hawaii were paid to mentor as they are in some other school districts.

Currently, the only compensation, if any, part-time Hawaii mentors receive are professional development opportunities and negligible stipends. In one Pennsylvania school district, for example, mentors earn an extra $2,850 each year.

Funamura chuckles when asked if selection of mentors is competitive. Though she’s noticed more teachers expressing an interest in mentoring, in part because the program is now more publicized and clearly defined, administrators still have to proactively recruit teachers to participate.

Plus, not everyone makes for a good mentor, said Funamura, who both taught and mentored before assuming her current administrative role. Mentors have to demonstrate that they’re highly effective teachers, but they also have to be personable and passionate, among a range of other qualities.

But both Funamura and Kalani stressed that mentorship is mutually beneficial.

“The mentors can become leaders, and some might see different potentials for themselves in new teachers,” Funamura said. The system of effective teachers “reproduces itself, and it’s getting better along the way, too.”

Meanwhile, Kalani said mentoring can often rejuvenate experienced teachers, who feed off of the excitement they observe in beginners.

“That level of enthusiasm is just infectious,” she said.