Professional Development - August
by Brad Best
February 04, 2008
During the professional development days prior to the beginning of the school year, teachers saw two full days of activities addressing district-wide improvement inititatives.
On August 13th, the staff met in the high school theatre. Our new superintendent, Dr. Greg Barnes, introduced the new teachers and administrators and delivered information related to his philosophies and initial goals. Following this brief session, the teachers took part in two discussions on how to work with students with various learning disabilities and handicapping conditions. These sessions set the tone for this year’s slogan, which is: “They are not your kids or my kids, they are OUR kids”. After a luncheon in the high school cafeteria, the teachers returned to their buildings for beginning of the year staff meetings, a discussion of the school improvement plans, coaches’ and teaching team meetings.
On August 14th, each staff was busy with building-level planning meetings. The high school staff has been working on initiating programs related to the smooth transition of 9th grade students into the high school, an advisor/advisee program to monitor students on a personal level, and the creating of personal learning plans for each student that are focused on each student’s interests. During the morning session, each group presented to the entire high school staff as a matter of updating their progress and as a way to obtain feedback for adapting their plans. In the middle school, the morning was spent in training with Mr. Williams on the use of the laptop computers issued to each of their classrooms. During this time, the elementary staff met to discuss the implementation of the Reading Mastery program, which provides focused instruction to small groups of students according to their needs. These teachers also spent time looking at reading achievement data to determine how students would be organized into each of these instructional groups, based on need.
During the afternoon session, Mr. Best met with the language arts teachers to discuss and plan the use of new materials in grades 5-12. The math curriculum representatives also met with Mr. Best to begin the process of analyzing the math program in grades K-12 and familiarize themselves with the process that will take place this school year.
It was a full two days of professional development for our teachers at the beginning of the new school year!
Professional Development - August
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