Coloma Community Schools will get some help developing new teachers with a new state grant.

The district has secured Section 27h funding, a dedicated portion of the State School Aid Act designed to strengthen K-12 education, to help support educators just coming into the classroom.

Coloma Community Schools Curriculum Director Daniel Marse tells us the $63,000 is being used to bolster a New Teacher Academy just launched this year. It pairs up new teachers with those who have more experience.

“Including getting our new teachers in a classroom to observe veteran teachers and how they operate, and then have that veteran teacher then observe the new teacher,” Mares said. “And then they have a conference between them where they can talk about the things that they saw or why they did a certain thing, how they did a certain thing, how they planned for that.”

Mares says this will help Coloma Community Schools better acquaint new teachers with the district culture and provide them with mentors. He says this could apply to teachers who just graduated as well as older teachers making a career change.

The New Teacher Academy currently includes six educators who meet regularly to collaborate on key topics within the classroom.