The Vocational Agriculture Teachers Association (VATAT) has established a program for professional mentors/mentees, conceived and supported by stakeholders in our profession, which has received attention by TEA staff, university professionals, school administrators, ESC staff, and both current and former agriculture teachers.

Many mentor programs utilize peer to peer mentoring using current teachers to mentor new teachers. While there are some valuable programs using this model, the VATAT plan is somewhat different. This is where you come in! We utilize retired master teachers that still have the passion for our profession to work with one or two mentees each.

The base and strength of this program is the careful selection of mentors, with the expectation that they make at least two on-site visits during the mentee’s first year on the job. At this time, we are only able to add a small number of mentors each year. If selected, we do require for a background check to be completed.