August 23, 2013 The Dispatch/Maryland Coast Dispatch Page 69 . . New Teachers WorkWith Mentors FROM PAGE 68 berg, an incoming BES teacher who has four years of experience teaching in New Mexico, agreed. Her impressions of Common Core have been positive and lead her to believe that there will be a bit more depth of learning under the new standards. “It’s more hands on. I think it allows the teachers who have been wanting to do more hands on, to let the students explore and that type of thing, I think it lets them do that,” said Bredenberg. Another new teacher, Matt Wallace, a 14-year teaching veteran from Wicomico who will start at Snow Hill High School in the fall, also isn’t feeling any intimidation by the transition to CCC. “There are still standards. We came from standards and we’re just getting another set of standards,” he said. “What it boils down to is when something new comes out, we don’t know until we get involved with it.” Megan Centineo, another new teacher with prior experience headed to Snow Hill Middle School, is interested in how Common Core will apply itself to her subject – music. “It’s different for me as a noncore subject but there are new things being put into place for me to start teaching some core subject aspects in my room,” she said. For example, CCC requires a degree of reading comprehension factored into any subject. In music, this can be pretty flexible, noted Centineo. “For us, text is the lyrics of a song or a sound clip of music,” she said. Beyond fresh curriculum, the induction this week confirmed to new teachers that WCPS won’t be “throwing them to the wolves,” said Bredenberg, but will instead provide a measured support system through an educator’s first few years in the county, especially through continued contact with mentors. “My mentor scheduled my planning period the same as her’s so we both are going to have the same planning period so that’ll be nice,” said Wallace. Parallel to the individual teacher support, Centineo was impressed with the kinds of classroom resources available in Worcester and the level of cooperation amongst educators. “It just seems like here everyone is supportive of kids being involved in whatever things they want to be in and we’re all going to work together to give them those experiences,” she said. In instances where students might have to miss work for music events or trips, Centineo was confident that the other teachers in her building would be empathetic about making academics and programs synch up. Bredenberg is approaching the year with a similar outlook, remarking that from everything she’s seen, WCPS is committed to introducing some of the best prepared starting teachers around.