The Jim Joseph Foundation and the AVI CHAI Foundation have announced grants totaling nearly $1.8 million to the New Teacher Center in support of training and mentorship opportunities for teachers at Jewish day schools.

The funds will support NTC's Jewish New Teacher Project, which provides induction support to new teachers in Jewish day schools, enabling them to teach at the level of an educator with four or five years' experience, while helping the schools themselves recognize and strengthen the teaching and leadership skills of their best teachers. The AVI CHAI Foundation, which created JNTP in 2003 in partnership with the New Teacher Center, awarded a grant of up to $1.13 million through 2016, while the Jim Joseph Foundation, which awarded a grant of $1.7 million to the program in 2008, will provide more than $646,000.

"JNTP has a proven strategy both for inducting day school teachers and, at the same time, for helping day schools provide effective, ongoing support to teachers through mentorship programs," says Chip Edelsberg, executive director of the Jim Joseph Foundation. "Given our significant investment in teacher training, supporting new teachers at day schools builds on this investment and is a core element of our strategic priority to increase the number and quality of Jewish educators. We are confident JNTP now has a sustainable and scalable model, and we are very pleased to partner with the AVI CHAI Foundation to pursue this vision."