Faye
Westerman, Principal
Pottsville
Elementary School
87
South B Street
Pottsville
AR 72858
Greetings!
As
you are aware, the School of Education at Arkansas Tech University has aligned
the teacher preparation programs in Early Childhood, Middle Childhood and
Secondary Education to the Pathwise/Praxis III. It is our belief that this will better
prepare teacher candidates to meet new requirements for licensure and to
smoothly transition to the mentoring programs being developed for novice
teachers.
An
important addition, then, to the placement of interns (student teachers) is a
commitment to Pathwise-trained mentors. To fulfill this commitment we are offering a
two-day Pathwise Training on Thursday and Friday,
December 6-7, 2001. I have enclosed a
flier and tentative agenda for your reference.
We invite all classroom teachers interested in mentoring an intern or a
first-year teacher to participate in this training if they have not already done
so. We particularly invite those teachers
who will serve as Field-based supervisors to our interns in the spring. To encourage and support participation, the
School of Education will pay the cost of substitutes needed to release
classroom teachers for this training, reimburse travel expense, and will
provide lunch both days. Feel free to
send as many of your faculty as you would like.
I will need a list of those who will attend as soon as possible so
that I can finalize arrangements for lunches.
I
have also enclosed a statement of invoice for you to complete and return
to me so that we can begin the process for payment as soon as possible. Also, the Purchasing Dept will require the
enclosed W-9 form completed in the name and tax identification number of
your school district for payment of the cost of substitutes. You school district will essentially be the
vendor.
We hope that you will join us in this effort to
strengthen the alignment of field placements to the internship experience to
the first year of teaching, as well as to sharpen the skills of teachers. Thank you for the commitment and support that
you have continued to provide to teacher education and Arkansas Tech
University.
Sincerely,
Gwen
Morgan
Director
of Teacher Education Student Services
501-968-0684;
Fax # 501-964-0508
gwen.morgan@mail.atu.edu
Encl