Mentors

Welcome!

Thank you for offering your time, expertise, and experience as an educator to support a new teacher in Napa County Induction. One of the benefits of this role, is the opportunity to advance your own practice while working alongside your new teacher. This page provides access to resources you manage according to your new teacher's needs, and is designed to develop your individual coaching practice throughout the course of the year.

MENTOR HANDBOOK

For your reference, our Mentor Handbook details the following information:

MentorHandbook 2025-26.pdf

Program Information:

Staff contact information
Professional Standards
Program Policy

Mentor Role:

Role & Responsibilities,
Mentor Shared Values

Mentor Tools:

Mentor Moves
Conversation Tools
Observation Toolkit

Mentor Growth:

Mentor Self-Assessment
Goal Setting

MENTOR TRAINING

We use Mentoring Matters by Lipton & Wellman for the development of your coaching practice. The tools in this book approach coaching from a strengths based perspective, encouraging a mentor to put the candidate in the driver's seat and build skills for a collaborative, learning-focused partnership.

Specifically, in Induction, we will develop skills in:

Offering Support (Physical, Emotional, Instructional, Institutional)
Creating Challenge
Facilitating Professional Vision
Intentional Listening
Structured Coaching Conversations
Designing Questions to Invite Thinking
Differentiated Coaching
Observation & Feedback

ADDITIONAL MENTOR RESOURCES

"Your life as a teacher begins the day you realize you are always a learner" -Robert John Meehan

As you determine your own goals for growth in the practice, review the titles below to see which might offer the most relevant expert information for your learning. You may choose to use these resources to support your growth as a mentor this year, specifically in your Mentor Growth Goal plan. Additional resources are available from the induction office at your request, please let us know what you might need.

"Created by teachers for teachers, this is the ultimate guide for unleashing students' potential through creative lessons, empowering messages and innovative teaching. The Growth Mindset Coach provides all you need to foster a growth mindset classroom, including:

A Month by Month Program
Research-Based Activities
Hands-On Lesson Plans
Real-Life Educator Stories
Constructive Feedback
Sample Parent Letters

Studies show that growth mindsets result in higher test scores, improved grades and more in-class involvement. When your students understand that their intelligence is not limited, they succeed like never before. With tools in this book, you can motivate your students to believe in themselves and achieve anything."

"You don't want this book - you need this book. Why this confident claim? Think about how many times you've walked away from conversations, sensing they could be more productive, but at a loss for how to improve them.

Enter instructional coaching expert Jim Knight, who in Better Conversations honors our capacity for improving our school by improving our communication. Asserting that our schools are only as good as the conversations within them, Jim shows us how to adopt the habits essential to transforming the quality of our dialogues.

As coaches, as administrators, as teachers, as human beings, it's time to thrive. Learn how to:

Coach ourselves and each other to become better communicators
Listen with empathy
Find common ground
Build trust

Our students' academic, social, and emotional growth depends on our doing this hard work. It's time to roll up our sleeves. open our minds, and dare to change for the better of the students we serve. You can get started now with Better Conversations."

"Becoming a Reflective Teacher demonstrates the importance of reflective practice - an essential component in developing expertise in teaching. Robert J. Marzano and his colleagues present research and theory-based strategies that combine a model of effective instruction with goal setting, focused practice, focused feedback, and observations and discussions of teaching to improve the instructional practices of all K-12 educators. This book includes a detailed compendium of over 270 ready-to-use strategies organized under 41 elements of teaching, along with reproducible self-assessment scales for each element.

Part of The Classroom Strategies Series, this clear, highly practical guide follows the series format, first summarizing key research and then translating it into recommendations for classroom practice."

Got Data? Now What?

"Data can elicit powerful conversations about practice, but only if they are the right data and udes strategically. Got Data? Now What? offers the strategies and tools necessary to identify what's relevant and transform struggling groups into powerful communities of learners. With this resource, group leaders can guide their teams in data-driven problem solving and decision making to improve student learning.

Authors Laura Lipton and Bruce Wellman provide:

A guided tour of data terms and practices
Relevant anecdotes that illustrate healthy data use and collaboration
End-of-chapter exercises for individual and group reflection

Within each chapter linked below, you will find the chapter pages and reproducibles. You may also visit go.solution-tree.com/teams to access additional materials and extensions for this book.