You were taken by helicopter to the heart of Beijing. You know a smattering of tangerines and have twice tried to eat with chopsticks. You know that silk and fireworks are native to China and that you are obviously a beginner trying to find your way in an unfamiliar environment. What are you doing? (Esch, 2010, p. 307) For many first-time teachers, they often feel as if they have been dropped into a foreign land. According to Ferguson (2010), 25% of first-year teachers will leave the profession after three years. Beginning teachers are often disappointed with their first year of teaching (Hellsten et al, 2009). First-year teachers have many obstacles to overcome. Their job is to implement effective instruction, develop and maintain relationships among faculty, staff and parents, and meet all teaching demands. In today's classrooms, student achievement is one component of measuring teacher success. It is critical that administrators provide the necessary support to new teachers. “The quality of teachers and teaching are undoubtedly among the most important factors shaping student learning” (Ingersoll, 2004, p. 1). Student achievement suffers from new teachers' lack of experience and professional development (Brandt, 2005). Haycock (1998) reports that the performance of at-risk students is even more influenced by teacher quality. This research proposal concerns the local school system's teacher induction program and its effectiveness on new teachers within this school system. This researcher would like to know whether the local school system's induction program meets the expectations of new teachers and in particular how this program has influenced the new tea program...... half of the document ...... ion “gave us human faces and a soft place to land when we fell. "Leimann, Murdock, and Waller (2008) wrote about their personal experiences with an induction program in their county of Wicomico. All three are new teacher mentors/consultants for Wicomico County Public Schools in Maryland. The Mentoring program in their county consists of three main components. Monthly professional development workshops are offered to teachers with less than four years of teaching induction program includes a one-to-one mentoring program. According to Leimann et al (2008) the success rate of their induction program shows that the retention of new hires after the first year of this program has been consistently “higher than national teacher retention rate of 78%”.