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theses

Novice teachers experience numerous challenges on their pathway to becoming highlyqualified teachers. Often times, the transition from student teacher to classroom teacher are filled with obstacles – some transparent, yet many unforeseen (Darling-Hammond, 2001). Alarmingly, more than a third of all new teachers choose to leave the profession within their first five years of entering the profession (National Center for Educational Statistics, 2014). Lack of support, classroom management issues, increased workloads, inadequate preparedness, lack of materials, and more are only a sample of the reported concerns germane to beginning teachers (Leukens, Lyter & Fox, 2004; Stockard & Lehman, 2004). Juxtapose these concerns with ever-increasing parental and community involvement coupled with the demands of working in a high socioeconomic and high-achieving school district can create a challenging environment for many novice teachers. In response to such concerns, school districts have created induction programs in an effort to assist novice teachers overcome these challenges (Feiman-Nemser, 2001; Ingersoll & Smith, 2003; Johnson, 2004; & Wong, 2001). In an effort to understand beginning teacher’s experiences in high-achieving and high socioeconomic school districts, this case study (Yin, 2008) explored beginning teacher’s experiences in an induction program in a high-achieving and high socioeconomic school district in the Northeast. The major findings from this study included the inconsistencies in the delivery and implementation of the induction program components, the induction program’s focus on school and district issues rather than on pedagogical needs of the novice teachers, and the increased levels of stress and anxiety experienced by the the beginning teachers as a result of participating in the induction program. In short, the findings suggest the induction program that was designed to assist and prepare beginning teachers to work in such an environment inadvertently increased the stress and anxiety it was designed to alleviate. Accordingly, the findings from this case study support and extend the literature on the need for induction programs for beginning teachers but more importantly, provide a foundation for future investigations into teacher’s perceptions and experiences in induction programs at high achieving and high socioeconomic school districts.

ETD_8737

Ed.D.

Includes bibliographical references

by Sean Struncis

doi:10.7282/T3ZC868P

ETD doctoral

The author owns the copyright to this work.