Finding and keeping great early childhood educators takes more than a job posting. Programs need ways to upskill or support growth of the educators they already have, welcome the next wave of staff, and give everyone reasons to stay. Colorado’s new Skills Guide Mentorship Grant shows how a single model can hit all three targets at once.
The Model in a Nutshell
Four community colleges, Arapahoe, Red Rocks, Northeastern Junior College, and Morgan, pair pre-service students in beginning early childhood courses with a veteran teacher called a Skills Guide (SG).
- Upskill and Retain. SGs earn paid coaching credentials, join Communities of Practice, and lead classroom-based coaching, all of which deepens their expertise and raises their value to employers.
- Prepare. Students complete scaffolded field assignments while an SG models practice, gives feedback, and opens doors to real classrooms.
- Recruit. Center directors watch students grow on site and students establish a potential pipeline to a position.
Marzano Research is supporting the Colorado Community College System grants team by identifying, collecting, and analyzing data to measure progress across those areas. Our Year 1 evaluation points to the value of creating meaningful advancement opportunities for current and future educators. View the infographic summarizing our findings so far.
Year 1 Outcomes
A total of 34 Skills Guides were recruited and trained so far, exceeding the three-year grant target of 32. Nearly half completed new credentials. Among Skills Guide survey respondents, 80% reported increases in reflective consultation skills, 80% improved mentoring and coaching, and 55% experienced strong professional growth. One Skills Guide described the impact: “I received my coaching credential! I would not have done that without this program.”
Employer feedback adds another important layer of insight. All directors surveyed said the Skills Guide role improved staff coaching capacity, and 85% said the role increased the likelihood of retention at their program.
Those results connect closely with participants’ outcomes. Mentored participants earned stronger grades and passed courses at higher rates than non-mentored students. Among mentored participants, 71% earned A grades compared with 51% of non-mentored students. Course pass rates also ran higher for mentored participants, at 94% compared with 83%.
Participant feedback reinforced those results. Survey responses showed that 91% reported increased confidence to teach, 91% reported improved readiness, 95% reported improved knowledge and skills, and 95% said they were satisfied with the mentorship experience. As one participant put it, “I don’t think I could have made it through the semester without my Skills Guide.”
Takeaways for Early Childhood Leaders
This project offers some practical ideas that other early childhood leaders can apply in their local settings. One is to build mentorship directly into the learning experience instead of treating it as a separate add-on. Another is to create leadership roles for experienced educators that honor their knowledge while expanding coaching capacity within programs. A third is to stay closely connected to employers and ask what they are seeing. In this evaluation, all directors said mentored staff increased competencies, and 93% said they were likely to recruit mentored participants.
Early pipeline findings also look encouraging. Project data show that 18% of participants continued from spring into fall coursework, and among those who continued, 91% advanced to higher-level early childhood education coursework.
Strong workforce efforts depend on strong evaluation, and that is another lesson here. We designed this ongoing study to examine implementation, participant experiences, credentials, retention, employer engagement, and short-term outcomes through administrative data, surveys, interviews, focus groups, and observations. That kind of close study helps leaders understand where a strategy is gaining traction and where it needs adjustment.
“Partnering with Marzano Research has been incredibly valuable to our work. Their thoughtful approach to evaluation has helped us turn data into meaningful insights, strengthening our program and guiding continuous improvement in ways that truly support our students and Skills Guides,” said Colorado Community College System Education Pathways Program Manager Sierra DiMarco, director of the project.
This partnership has been equally meaningful to our team. Colorado’s mentorship work shows what can happen when leaders invest in current educators, connect new educators to guided practice, and study outcomes carefully as it unfolds. In early childhood education, that kind of steady, informed effort makes the workforce more robust and resilient.