(Courtesy of JNTP) Jewish New Teacher Project (JNTP), the acclaimed new teacher and early career administrator mentoring program, launched its 20th program year this month. JNTP helps educators in Jewish day schools gain and maintain the skills they need so that their students can thrive.
JNTP runs two signature programs: Teacher Induction, which focuses on advancing new teacher effectiveness through intensive mentoring over two years, and Administrator Support, which supports early career administrators with cohort-based learning and individual coaching. A self-funded division of the award-winning national New Teacher Center (NTC), JNTP brings NTC’s research-based and field-tested proven approaches, innovations and best practices to the Jewish day school field, helping to create cultures of academic excellence. Due to its focus on pedagogy, professional goal-setting and data-based feedback, JNTP-trained educators get better faster, and stay in the field longer.
JNTP has its roots in this area: It launched in 2003 with 12 veteran teachers and 21 beginning teachers from seven NY/NJ/CT schools. Since then, over 105 schools from the area have participated in JNTP. To date, JNTP has partnered with 235 schools of all sizes across North America and across denominations, working with more than 2,300 teachers and 160 early career administrators. At this point, over 40,000 students per year have a teacher trained by JNTP!
In addition to its legacy programs—which now support pre-school-12th grades with the recent addition of a dedicated early childhood educators Teacher Induction track—JNTP also offers custom professional development. For example, JNTP recently developed custom professional learning series for Yeshivah of Flatbush elementary and high schools on running professional learning communities (PLCs) and for department chairs, respectively.
The Jewish day school field is in the midst of a severe educator crisis, where there aren’t enough teachers entering or staying in the field, and not enough of a pipeline for school leadership. JNTP’s work addresses some of these acute pain points, leading directly to teacher effectiveness, job satisfaction and retention, and to the creation of a robust leadership pipeline. At this inflection point in the field, JNTP is energized and eager to build on its past achievements and to scale and expand its work to ensure that all students attending Jewish day schools receive the excellent education they deserve.
Visit www.jntp.org for more information and to learn about our impact on the day school field over the past 20 years.
