EUGENE, Ore. -- Julie McCauley counts herself lucky.

When she began her career as a Spanish teacher at North Eugene High School 23 years ago, two experienced colleagues "kind of took me under their wing," she said, steadying her through what might otherwise have been an overwhelming, even discouraging, first year.

Who's to say what might have happened if she'd been left alone to sink or swim, as is the case for many novice teachers?

According to various studies, anywhere from 30 percent to 50 percent of new teachers flee the profession within the first five years, many citing a lack of support for the challenging work they do. A 2007 study of five school districts by the National Commission on Teaching and America's Future gauged the cost of hiring and replacing a teacher at between $4,400 and $17,900, depending on the size of the district.

But a growing number of Oregon school districts -- including Eugene, Springfield, Bethel, South Lane, Creswell and Pleasant Hill -- are channeling dollars into formal programs to help first-year teachers succeed and, they hope, stick around.

The trend isn't new, but it got a boost in the last legislative session, thanks in part to lobbying by the education advocacy groups Chalkboard Project and Stand for Children.

Drawing on research that shows greater effectiveness and higher retention rates among new teachers who have been in mentoring programs, House Bill 2574 called for formal mentoring for every new teacher and administrator in Oregon. Lawmakers set aside $5 million in grants this year, and there's guarded optimism that will increase in the next biennium.

The Eugene district started a mentoring program a decade ago, although it temporarily pulled the plug in 2001 due to budget woes. Now in its fifth year in its current form, the program assigns as many as five new teachers with three or fewer years under their belts to one mentor, preferably in the same building or the same area of instruction.

McCauley has been a mentor off and on for several years. This year, she is assigned to four teachers -- two new, one who's been a substitute for several years and one with three years' experience as a classroom teacher in Louisiana.

"My role is to just give them support and be a person they can go to with questions, who is not judgmental at all, even if they feel like it's a silly question," said McCauley. She tries to touch base with each teacher weekly, and pops into their classrooms on occasion to casually observe.

Brian Gulka, a fifth-grade teacher at Gilham Elementary School, is mentor to a group of five elementary teachers, three in his own building.

"My motivation is really that my first year was really hard," said Gulka, who started teaching in 1999 at Yujin Gakuen Elementary, the Japanese immersion school.

That first year, the district assigned him a mentor, a respected veteran named Jim Watson, who was working out of the central office at the time. The two communicated mostly by phone or e-mail, but it made a difference.

"I didn't see him a whole bunch, but he helped me out in huge ways that really made the year go so much better," said Gulka, in his fourth year as a mentor.

Fresh out of the University of Oregon master's program, Gilham first-grade teacher Amanda Edgecomb said Gulka came to their first group meeting with helpful lists of resources and suggestions for things to do your first day and first week.

"I had a million questions, and he was always ready to answer them," said Edgecomb, 30, who briefly pursued careers in the travel and accounting fields before finding what she believes is her passion.

Gentle yet firm with her 22 students, Edgecomb projects confidence in the classroom.

"OK, who thinks it's too noisy for your writing?" she asked the children recently during the daily "writers' workshop," this one focused on first drawing a picture illustrating something that happened in class, then writing accompanying prose.

Chatter persisted, and several small hands shot up.

"OK, turn off your voices," Edgecomb calmly said.

The room fell silent.

Having a formal mentoring program was important to Edgecomb.

"That was something I asked about in my interview, actually," she said. "I'm pretty resourceful, but there are times as a first-year teacher when things come up and it's really helpful to have this."

The program has a $100,000 budget, which pays for mentor stipends ($500 to $1,300 a year, depending on case load), mentor training and a three-day "induction academy" for new teachers at the start of the year that covers nuts-and-bolts issues, such as union membership and health plans, as well as topics such as behavior management and special education.

The district applied for, but did not receive, a grant from the new $5 million state fund. The process was highly competitive -- only nine of 36 applications were funded, said Pat Burk, chief policy officer for the Oregon Department of Education.

Eugene's model doesn't perfectly match the state's, which calls for pairing each mentor with a single new teacher and asks that they spend a minimum of 90 hours together, with formal release time given through the year.

"This is not like a buddy system, where someone comes in and shows you where the coffee is and where the Xerox machine is," Burk said. "The purpose of this program is really to improve instruction. We're looking for people who are helping the new teacher with the deeper elements of providing quality instruction in the classroom."

The South Lane, Creswell, Pleasant Hill and North Douglas school districts applied together and received a $175,000 state grant, said Tim Rochholz, South Lane's director of instruction. The program is just getting off the ground, he said, with 34 new teachers participating.

Though not as costly or intensive, new-teacher mentor programs in Springfield and Bethel also use a one-to-one model, in Springfield's case tapping retirees.

Both models have advantages, teachers in the programs say. One-on-one mentoring can generally go deeper and offers more privacy to teachers who might not wish to share their challenges, but the group approach fosters bonds between newcomers and offers a venue to share ideas.

"Just getting them together they realize they're all in the same boat, that 'I'm not a horrible teacher because I'm feeling exhausted,"' McCauley said. "I think it works well."