Anita Ducharme

New Teachers Get Signing Bonuses
Excerpt from Holyoke Union-News, Friday, May 19, 2000
By Dan Ring, Staffwriter

Anita Ducharme of Chicopee says she probably wouldn't have become a teacher if it weren't for her son. - "He's been my greatest teacher," Ducharme, 39, said yesterday. "He helped define my true passion, which is working with children." Ducharme and her son, Christopher Reardon, 13, were celebrating yesterday as she accepted a $20,000 signing bonus for agreeing to teach at a Massachusetts school.

Senate President Thomas F. Birmingham and state Education Commissioner David P. Driscoll yesterday announced the bonuses for Ducharme and 116 other people across the state. The signing bonus, a comerstone of an aggressive campaign to recruit teachers, went into effect with a $60 million endowment in August 1998. Birmingham said the bonuses are needed because of "a frightening paucity" of people entering the teaching profession especially in science and math. "This is an effort ... to bring some of the most talented people into the teaching profession," Birmingham said at a Statehouse press conference. 'This is not a panacea, but it's clearly a step in the right direction." Last year, 63 new teachers received the bonuses. Massachusetts is the only state to offer signing bonuses for teachers.

A single mother, Duchame will graduate on Sunday with a bachelor's degree of arts in psychology and education from Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley with a 3.92 grade point average. She was elected to Phi Beta Kappa and will receive her degree magna cum laude. She grew up in Granby and graduated from Granby High School in, 1979.

A former acting manager for a local bank, Ducharme represents 58 percent of yesterday's recipients - mid-career professionals who are entering teaching for the first time. She is a substitute teacher in Chicopee and is hoping to land a job in the city s school's system as an elementary teacher in special education. "My first choice is Chicopee," she said. "I've had wonderful experiences there." She attended Mount Holyoke under the Frances Perkins Scholar program for nontraditional students.

Almost 900 people applied for the special teacher bonuses this year. Winners were selected on the basis of class rank, grade point averages, writing samples, recommendations and work experience. The bonus recipients come from 12 states and Morocco.