The Virtual Mentoring for Student Success (VMSS) is a partnership that includes the National Science Teachers Association; six urban schools districts in California - the Hayward Unified, the Morgan Hill Unified, the Mount Diablo Unified, the Gilroy Unified, the North Monterey County, and the Pajaro Valley Unified School Districts; ninety small rural school districts in Montana - the Billings Public Schools, Great Falls Public Schools and Manhattan Public Schools, the Alliance for Curriculum Enhancement, MT Small Schools Alliance, Golden Triangle Consortium, Prairie View Consortium, Missoula County Consortium and Northwest Curriculum Consortium; University of California Santa Cruz and Montana State University-Bozeman.
The partnership focuses on raising student achievement in science at the middle and high school levels through effective sustained professional development of novice teachers using an innovative, disciplinary, content-specific distance-delivery model that promises to reduce teacher attrition rates. Strategies include: co-mentoring networks of new teachers, mentors, and current and future faculty; preparing a cadre of administrators to support beginning teachers and their mentors to improve student learning; and meeting a national need by developing national standards to guide the effective mentoring and induction of novice science teachers. The project is impacting 800 novice teachers, 480 mentors, 720 administrators and 10 science faculty.
