CERRA Receives $350,000 Grant

ROCK HILL—In a joint effort to improve the retention of special educators in South Carolina, the Center for Educator Recruitment, Retention, and Advancement (CERRA) and the State Department of Education’s Office of Exceptional Education have been awarded a three-year, $350,000 grant to develop a mentoring program catered to the needs of special educators.

After completing a one-year residency with CERRA as the 2008 South Carolina State Teacher of the Year, Ann Marie Taylor will join the staff full-time to build the program, which will serve as an extension of the South Carolina Mentor Training already offered by CERRA and the Division of Educator Quality and Leadership.

Teacher retention is a growing problem nationwide and the effort to retain special education teachers is even more of a struggle. The development of one of the nation’s first special education mentoring program is aimed to reduce the attrition rate of special education teachers in South Carolina. Through the grant, Taylor will have the opportunity to mentor a selected cohort of special education teachers as she develops the mentor training program.

Through South Carolina Mentor Trainings, CERRA has certified more than 1,200 educators since July 2007. Likewise, Taylor believes similar growth can occur with special educators once the new program is developed that will answer the existing need to support special education teachers through mentoring.

CERRA, an independent state agency located on the campus of Winthrop University, is the oldest and most established teacher recruitment program in the country. The purpose of CERRA is to provide leadership in identifying, attracting, placing and retaining well-qualified individuals for the teaching profession in South Carolina. CERRA’s programs have been adopted at school, district and state levels in more than 30 states in the United States.