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"Rookie Club" in Lawton Public Schools Helps New Teachers Survive First Year

Emily Wendler / KOSU
First-year teachers at Lawton Public Schools participating in the "Rookie Club."

The first year of teaching is hard. National data shows that one in 10 teachers will quit in their first year.

In Oklahoma, hundreds of people have received emergency certifications, allowing them to teach with very little, or no, experience. What kind of support are they getting? In some schools, it's not much. But in others, they have help and inspiration to get them over the first-year hump. 

Tammie Lincoln worked for an insurance company before she got her job at Lawton Public Schools.

“I quit the day before school started… to become a teacher," she said.

This is her first year teaching the second grade, and  things are going… okay. She loves it, but classroom management is a struggle.

"...When you put 25 kids in a room by yourself for a full day, and you’re trying to figure out, how am I supposed to teach them math? How am I supposed to teach them reading? How do I get them to sit down and be quiet? It's tough," she said.

Lincoln is one of the hundreds that have been emergency certified to teach in Oklahoma this year.  She says if it weren’t for Lawton Public School’s Rookie Club, and the support of her principal—she might have quit already.

“I can tell you that if I didn’t have it, I would probably pull my hair out and not want to come back.”

The Rookie Club is a monthly training for new teachers in the district. Brenda Hatch, who’s in charge, says the new teachers, especially the ones without an education degree, need the guidance. That’s why they started it a few years ago.

“Your first year you’re just learning the whole process. How to plan, how to do lesson plans effectively, how do you… what’s the right way to assess the student. What do you do for your struggling kiddos?”

The Rookie Club in Lawton allows new teachers to express their struggles, ask for advice, and talk about teaching techniques that they’re experimenting with.

Many school districts in the state offer professional development, but some don’t offer much. The State also requires all teachers to complete 75 hours of training in their first five years on the job.

But the Rookie Club is a little different. They spotlight a different theme each month, like classroom management or rules and procedures. This month's theme was mutual respect between teachers and students, so Hatch brought in two successful teachers to share their wisdom on creating peace in the classroom.

The experts told the rookies to take time getting to know their students. One suggested driving through kid’s neighborhoods to see where they come from. The other recommended going to their sports games. A mantra in teaching, they said, is kids don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.

Brenda Hatch thinks the Rookie Club is helping. None of their rookies have left yet, and she keeps her fingers crossed that they don’t. She says they can’t pay their teachers more money, so they do what they can to support them.

“We need to make sure we address any needs that they have so we can keep 'em," she said.

Hatch thinks that with this training, her teachers will be alright in their classrooms. But, she says one of the main things newbies need to understand, is that this job is not an 8 to 5. They will really have to go above and beyond to be successful.

Emily Wendler was KOSU's education reporter from 2015 to 2019.
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