Much of the research on mentoring has been either case study in nature or conducted with general educators. To understand the impact of mentoring for special educators, a consensus document prescribing guidelines for mentoring was developed and used across 7 national sites with 244 new teachers and 253 mentors. Results from the new teacher and mentor teacher surveys (returned by 60% and 68% of the new teachers and mentors respectively) showed that overall mentoring was considered worthwhile and helpful to the beginning teachers and helped to remediate stressors associated with attrition. The majority of new teachers and mentors were satisfied with being special education teachers and intended to return to the classroom.
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