Start UP! Your Class Co-operative
Our Aim:
Using face to face and video workshops, and online resources, we aim to help early career elementary teachers in BC with a new assignment.
Who:
More than 1500 early career BC teachers have participated in the program's workshops since the program was begun with a BC Ministry grant to PITA in 2007.

We have focused upon supporting grade 4-7 and middle school teachers, and successfully tested our approach with primary teachers. We believe this Professional Orientation approach will help teachers at all levels.

The Start UP! Your Class Co-operative is a non-profit teachers' cooperative begun by a group from the executive of  the Provincial Intermediate Teachers Association in BC led by Ray Myrtle.

Ray will continue to do a limited number of workshops, and we advocate for the development of professional orientation for new teachers. Our focus is upon sharing what we have learned so others can build upon our experience.

Create your own Professional Orientation for your district or school.

We would be happy to help by sharing what we have learned about helping new teachers so you can create your own custom Professional Orientation.
The main focus now is on collecting data about the effect of Start UP!'s  professional orientation on teachers since 2009 evaluation (below). So far, Ray has found that the workshop met a strong need, and was effective:
  • almost 100% participants would recommend the workshops to a new teacher.
  • teachers' evaluations of the program seem to be similar to the earlier external review
  • most teachers continue to use the strategies after 5 or more years
  • most teachers continue to recommend almost all the suggested strategies after 5 or more years.
NOTE: The Start UP! program was called the Year of Professional Support (YPS) when this evaluation was done.