Date of Award

Spring 2021

Degree Type

Open Access Dissertation

Degree Name

Education, PhD

Dissertation or Thesis Committee Member

Thomas Luschei

Dissertation or Thesis Committee Member

Dina Maramba

Dissertation or Thesis Committee Member

Carl Cohn

Terms of Use & License Information

Terms of Use for work posted in Scholarship@Claremont.

Keywords

burnout, comprehensive formal mentoring, stress, teacher migration, urban Title 1 school settings, veteran teachers

Abstract

Teaching is known to be a highly stressful occupation. Experiences of prolonged stress can lead to teacher burnout and attrition. Veteran teacher attrition, primarily teacher migration, negatively impacts students with the greatest needs and does not address antecedent factors driving the pattern of attrition. Comprehensive formal mentoring has been documented as a mitigating factor for stress, burnout, and attrition for new teachers. Although veteran teachers also face several salient causes of stress and burnout, there appears to be very little research on, or programs of, comprehensive formal mentoring designed specifically for veteran teachers. Therefore, this qualitative, phenomenological study explored the perceptions, thoughts, and experiences of veteran teachers who participated in a rarely offered comprehensive formal mentor program. This study involved twenty K-8 public school teachers from six different school districts in the Southern California area. Veteran teachers were defined as those who had a minimum of ten years' experience in the classroom. The findings of this study suggest that comprehensive formal mentoring does address the needs of veteran teachers, may mitigate attrition, and may have sustainability. In addition, this study identifies positive administrative support as a necessary component for the success of comprehensive formal mentoring programs. Implications include changes in policy, suggestions for additional support for veteran teachers, and comprehensive formal mentoring as mitigation of teacher migration in urban, Title 1 school settings.

DOI

10.5642/cguetd/196

ISBN

9798738631801

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