Liliana Jones is entering her first year as a math teacher at El Capitan High School. As the school year approached, Jones was full of thoughts and emotions as she prepared to greet her students.

“Oh my gosh,” Jones said. “I feel every emotion, nerves, excitement, at times it’s overwhelming, but I also feel a lot of happiness. The people at El Cap, all the people that I've worked with there, have been super welcoming and willing to help. As a first-year teacher, that's all you want.”

Jones recently took part in MUHSD's New Teacher Institute at the DISC. Jones was one of approximately 40 new teachers who took part in the three-day training seminar, which offered guidance. District instructional coaches and mentors guided the new staff members through role-playing exercises, along with providing instructional knowledge and essential classroom management skills.

“Across all three days, the consistent message is that effective teaching at MUHSD is grounded in strong relationships, high-quality instruction, professionalism, and a commitment to ensuring every student is known, supported, and prepared for their future,” said Tiffani Gong, K-12 Pathway Coordinator, Merced Community College District, and Program Administrator for MUHSD.

Gong says the goals for the New Teacher Institute are:

• Build trusting relationships with new teachers.
• Support implementation of instructional best practices introduced during New Teacher Institute (NTI).
• Help new teachers navigate district systems, expectations, and resources.
• Promote teacher confidence, effectiveness, and retention.

District leaders spoke to the new teachers, including MUHSD Superintendent Alan Peterson and Deputy Superintendent Mandy Ballenger. Peterson held a Q&A session that provided an opportunity for the new teachers to hear directly from the superintendent. Ballenger presented the MUHSD “Big Picture,” focusing on the District’s vision, mission, core beliefs and how new teachers play an important role in advancing these priorities in the classroom.

Both Peterson and Ballenger took part in day one of the NTI. On the second day, instructional design was delivered in a way that models MUHSD's instructional must-haves and deeper learning strategies. Rather than simply learning about effective instructional practices, new teachers experience them as learners, reinforcing the instructional delivery we expect to see in our classrooms.

On day three, the focus shifted to instructional management, emphasizing strategies for creating physically and emotionally safe learning environments. New teachers also navigated MUHSD's instructional and operational platforms, gaining hands-on experience with the digital tools and systems they will use throughout the school year to support instruction, communication and daily responsibilities.

Livingston High alumnus Brian Alvarez, who is beginning his first year as a special education teacher at Buhach Colony, says it was helpful to be surrounded by first-year teachers. “Absolutely, I think whenever you can be around a group that you can relate with and share common questions with, or just common interests, I think it just makes the whole process a lot easier,” Alvarez said. “And everyone is looking forward to getting this new chapter started.”

“I think the New Teacher Institute has helped me prepare for the new school year by answering a lot of questions that I didn't even know I had,” Alvarez added. “There's things that I thought I knew a lot about, like Aeries and whatnot. But just being able to deep dive more into certain aspects of Aeries or just curriculum, or anything that revolves around being a teacher. I think being able to meet new teachers and bouncing ideas off of one another has been a great help for me and helped prepare me for the new school year.”

Jones, who is a Buhach Colony alumna, says the NTI has given her tools to help her when she’s planning lessons.

“It has solidified a lot of the concepts that I feel I got firsthand experience and exposure to as a student teacher, it's really solidified that in a way that I can directly apply my lessons with the five classroom culture must-haves and the five actual lesson must-haves,” Jones said. “I feel like I can take those tools and those checklists and mark them off as I'm creating and really make a habit and a pattern as I move forward.”

Shawn Jansen is the MUHSD Program Manager Digital Media. He can be reached at Sjansen@muhsd.org.