Dealing With Issues

Notification of Concern

While all of our student teachers are developing as professionals and can be expected to require regular support and feedback, occasionally student teachers do not progress as expected and may fail to address the weaknesses in their performance identified by their mentor teachers.

If you believe this puts them at risk for not receiving credit for the course or for receiving a poor final evaluation, you will want to issue a Notification of Concern (NOC).  Please contact your University Facilitator (UF) or your Field Experience Associate (FEA) as soon as possible to receive support with the NOC process and completing the NOC document. This document is a formal tool to identify the supports provided thus far and to ensure that students are aware of the areas requiring improvement and establishes a plan to deal with areas of significant weakness. Typically the NOC is administered in cases where persistent problems have not been addressed, despite sufficient feedback from the mentor teacher, zone field experience associate, and university facilitator (AFX only).

While serious, the document is not intended to be punitive, and should focus on the improvements required to be successful. The document should identify:

1. The specific areas of practice that need to be dealt with.

2. A detailed plan for addressing the problem areas.

3. A description of what will be considered an acceptable level of improvement.

4. A target date for improvements (usually 3-5 days from issuance of a Notification of Concern).

The mentor teacher usually initiates the Notification of Concern, with the support of the zone field experience associate (IFX) or university facilitator (AFX) as required. The university facilitator and the mentor teacher should meet to issue the Notification of Concern to the student teacher. The school coordinator and/or field experience associate may also be involved, if desired. The Notification of concern is stored in the student’s file at the university, but does not become part of their permanent record.

If a student teacher does not satisfy the terms of the Notification of Concern in the prescribed period, various options can be considered, including the issuance of a second Notification of Concern, the extension of the target date, course failure, or the early termination of the placement. In these cases, the mentor teacher should consult with the university facilitator and/or field experience associate.

Termination of Placement

While the vast majority of our students are successful in their field experience, occasionally a student’s involvement may in some way negatively impact your school community significantly enough that the placement should not continue. We respect that school principals must act in the best interest of their school communities and that they are able to unilaterally terminate a placement at their discretion. In such cases, we appreciate that this can be challenging work, so they should contact their field experience associate for assistance.