How can we deliver effective professional development for all staff members? We are searching for the best answer. The creation of Professional learning communities was a structure that was going to help us in our quest for new learning. Stephanie Hirsch and Joellen Killion in their commentary in Education Week, talk about making us all learning educators. They say that “A 2007 American Institutes for Research study of successful schools that ‘beat the odds’ in student achievement shed more light on the issue. The study showed that teachers in school schools, when compared with those in low-performing schools, were to a greater degree, deliberately engaged in collaboration, were supported by instructional coaches, received regular classroom visits by principals and benefited from peer observations and coaching as well as mentoring. … Effective professional learning is like a time-release capsule; its contents cannot be absorbed in a single day or week, but must be infused into a system over time to get desired results in student achievement.” I bring this up because the leadership team members have been working on a draft of a professional development plan for the school system. We are all realizing that as we begin to put this plan together it is integrated with teacher evaluation and curriculum. As soon as we go through the first draft I will give you a link for your review and comments.
It is almost May of 2008. This year has gone by so quickly and we have accomplished so much this past year. Visiting classrooms and looking at all of the student work clearly demonstrates how hard our teachers have worked. Hopefully, we will be able to begin working on curriculum this summer. All depends on our budget. If all goes well I hope three committees will begin the discussion on math, language arts and social studies curriculum.
