| 1. | 2/5/2008 1:56:00 AM | I have always thought our district has done a good job in this area. |
| 2. | 2/5/2008 3:48:00 AM | It needs to happen. Let's make it count for our kids. |
| 3. | 2/5/2008 2:08:00 PM | Let's get what we've started done, then move on to the next goal. |
| 4. | 2/5/2008 2:29:00 PM | I'd also like to see more professional development opportunities offered to our recess support staff. I believe these staff members would benefit from crisis intervention and mediation trainings. |
| 5. | 2/5/2008 3:30:00 PM | We need continual development in reading instruction as well as implementing differentiation across subject areas. I also feel the need for ELL development. This is a rapidly growing population and I don't think we have done enough development in this area to support these learners in our classroom. |
| 6. | 2/5/2008 4:08:00 PM | Quality instructors help keep me energized about my job. |
| 7. | 2/5/2008 6:53:00 PM | We do have well qualified staff, but that doesn't mean that we can't be looking to improve. After all, you can't keep doing the same thing and expecting to get different results. |
| 8. | 2/5/2008 7:53:00 PM | We would benefit from time to learn from our peers, time to learn new technology and time to meet with our grade level colleagues |
| 9. | 2/5/2008 7:54:00 PM | Outside professional development is the only way for us to truly be up-to-date in our particular profession. |
| 10. | 2/5/2008 11:03:00 PM | We need to take a look at one-size fits all for inservices. Different levels have different needs and our present inservices have not always been sinsitive to this. |
| 11. | 2/6/2008 3:05:00 AM | We need more grade level time. I really miss this important time to discuss relevant issues with colleagues in the district that teach the same grade level as I do. |
| 12. | 2/6/2008 3:07:00 AM | Specifically, I would like to see our district continue to support the new PI-34 licensing with training and professional development to improve our newer teacher population as well as those mentoring and working with this population. |
| 13. | 2/7/2008 3:08:00 PM | I wish our district would offer more conferences to go to. |
| 14. | 2/11/2008 6:16:00 PM | I love staff development, I would like to choose some things that I could benefit from. What really matters in my classroom. We are always so busy with curriculum projects, assessments, realignment, etc. we often don't have time/energy to do more. We all have families and personal issues too. |
| 15. | 3/4/2008 3:01:00 AM | To me, I can 'professionally develop' well by having the chance to sit down with other teachers and communicate, share, and discuss ideas. I miss our grade level meetings and would like to have time to work more often as a grade level. When we have early releases, I'd appreciate the time to collaborate with colleagues on curriculum planning just as the middle and high school do. |
| 16. | 3/4/2008 2:50:00 PM | We need to review the training needs of our staff and determine if we can train staff to be trainers of trainers. These staff members can train our staff and review skills on a regular basis. We have a good plan of regular review of CPR skills. Why don't we have a regular plan of reviewing crisis intervention skills, TRIBES, and other skills. We could provide opportunities for staff to receive ongoing training and certification in these skills. |
| 17. | 3/4/2008 3:01:00 PM | I'm not sure when the time would come. Release the kids at 2:00 twice per month as another option? |
| 18. | 3/5/2008 7:40:00 PM | Many of my comments below get to this point. |
| 19. | 3/5/2008 8:57:00 PM | I believe much can be job embedded. However, some theory learning is important. If the theory is not solid, the instruction won't be effective. |
| 20. | 3/6/2008 4:52:00 PM | It seems like certain people have the opportunity for professional growth which is paid by the district, while others have little opportunity unless they seek it out personally. |
| 21. | 3/6/2008 5:00:00 PM | With more curriculum being added like guidance and technology, we need to know what we're doing. |
| 22. | 3/6/2008 5:05:00 PM | We need more time for planning on a daily basis.Like double of what we currently have so we can continue to do an outstanding job with our instruction. More mandates does not encourage this as the time requirement is unreasonable due to all the constraints. Great in theory, put actual practical application- disasterous. |
| 23. | 3/6/2008 6:40:00 PM | We need time to collaborate with our other colleagues at our grade levels. That has been taken away from us. |
| 24. | 3/6/2008 8:05:00 PM | Teachers are professionals and seek training in the areas they feel they need more development in. I don't know how effective it is for administrators to decide the area of professional development and then to provide professional development in a paintbrush fashion versus looking at staff input in regards to needs and interests. |
| 25. | 3/6/2008 8:33:00 PM | Some professional development should be decided on what each staff feels it needs. If this is to be a priority, time needs to be provided. All continuing education cannot occur on weekends and summers. |
| 26. | 3/6/2008 10:51:00 PM | As long as 'job embedded' means that that topic we are getting developed on is something that is directly applicable to MY students and is something that I can apply the next day of class... |
| 27. | 3/18/2008 4:17:00 PM | Are we changing the the Professional Development Model? Will we still have a choice in what we pursue for our own development? Will there be additional red tape involved when a teacher researches a new strategy and wants to implement it? |
| 28. | 3/19/2008 1:50:00 PM | I appreciate the fact that I have always been encouraged in this area. |
| 29. | 3/19/2008 4:54:00 PM | It would be nice to see some professional development opportunities given here in the district, ie. courses for district employees with credit or other sessions. |
| 30. | 3/19/2008 5:20:00 PM | Ivneed an example of what this would mean.... |
| 31. | 3/19/2008 5:41:00 PM | But not continually taken away from our classes to accomplish. Doubly so when it's teachers who teach in two different subject areas. There's a lot of curriculum we are required to cover in a year and we lose more and more time to other things required of us. It's getting more and more difficult to have students prove, on tests, what they have learned when there's less class time to have them learn/practice it. Time to meet with and share ideas with grade level teachers is often taken up with IEPs and parent meetings, leaving little time to learn from each other. |
| 32. | 3/19/2008 7:20:00 PM | When people use words like "job-embedded" I get a little nervous. What the heck does that mean, anyway!?! Also, how about a goal that all staff get equitab;e opptunities to participate in professional development opportunities? I fear that support for this from the district is more equal for some that it is for others. |
| 33. | 3/20/2008 3:18:00 AM | What does supported by the district mean? |
| 34. | 4/7/2008 9:56:00 PM | Adequate time and resources are equally important and necessary if this goal is worth any attention at all. Sustainability and capacity are researched related topics that this district needs to consider. The pace right now is too fast! |
| 35. | 4/7/2008 9:22:00 PM | Hopefully the District policy on Continueing Education Credits is intact and structured to allow professionals to keep current in their fields and not be penalized on the salary schedule. |
| 36. | 4/8/2008 12:31:00 AM | We need time and training to learn and then try new initiatives. Time with our departments, co-teachers and time to implement is really important. Also, please make the professional development training on-going - not a one time event. |
| 37. | 4/8/2008 12:18:00 PM | Would this include tuition reimbursement? |
| 38. | 4/8/2008 12:26:00 PM | I would like to see some other things go on once in awhile with professional development besides curriculum work. I know curriculum is what we do but sometimes it would be nice to work on some other areas such as technology. |
| 39. | 4/8/2008 3:02:00 PM | does this mean district will regulate what courses or credits teachers will be able to take? |
| 40. | 4/8/2008 4:21:00 PM | i am not sure that this is clearly stated; we are not given enough time for this, Zaspel has been very supportive of attending professional conferences, but we need more time to meet as a staff to effect change if that is what we are going to do, would like to see a site based management team |
| 41. | 4/8/2008 4:59:00 PM | The term "job embedded" is ambiguous. What does this mean? Will there be time for us to sharpen our craft? |
| 42. | 4/8/2008 8:52:00 PM | Although this goal is worded rather abstractly, professional development may not initially appear to be job-embedded. A sustained interest may cultivate itself into a curricular frontier, as is often the case. |
| 43. | 4/8/2008 9:06:00 PM | Perhaps utilizing early release as it was in the past to further istruct educators rather than to complete academic goals could be helpful. |
| 44. | 4/8/2008 7:58:00 PM | We have to look at a different method of providing this. The early release days just don't work. How about quality on-line presentations that offer flexibility in the topic that people self select and the choice of when to access it. In the area of technology we need people who are willing to sit down with employees and help them learn new tasks, or how about having some of our own staff members teach us new techniques instead of them monitoring student in study hall. We have terrific people whose occupation it is to teach and not monitor lunchrooms or study halls. We need to start thinking outside the traditional box. |
| 45. | 4/9/2008 5:14:00 PM | Sounds good, but what does it mean. Right now a lot of our fomalized profesional development is in the form of classes we take to maintain our licenses and move up the pay scale. With the advent of PI 34 there are many other ways to work on profesional development and maintain licensure that do not require classwork (though classwork is permisable it is not the desired route under PI 34) I would like to see the district amend our contract to account for these changes, both to support teacher in PI 34 and to encourage teachers to explore a more diverse range and in many cases more meaningfull ways of improving their teaching. I think the district should make some language changes to accomplish this and alter the salary schedule in such a way as to provide more ways of moving up in the salary matrix other that by classes alone. |
| 46. | 4/10/2008 1:16:00 PM | Listen to teachers. They are asking for this...with some hesitancy. We've got to begin to look at the "Just what you need, just in time" model of professional development. We all know time is tight for professional development, or anything else for that matter. The district needs to be smarter about what is presented and how it is presented, and to whom it is presented. Perhaps spending $5,000-10,000 on an assessment training that will be put to the back of the line as far as transformational change of our school would be better spent in other ways. Perhaps we could provide an online resource/presentation about the same topic that teachers can and must view in their prep time (yep, that's part of what they should be doing during that time anyhow!!!). Or, maybe the district provides an Ipod/mp3 player for every teacher and they receive updates/professional development via a different resource than sending everyone to a "one and done" style of professional development that impacts less than 3% of the overall staff (and to believe that those people are actually dispersing the information is ludicrous...lack of time or willingness to other educators to hear the message from someone else's conference is a sure end to the enthusiasm a conference can spark in attendees) |
| 47. | 4/10/2008 4:36:00 PM | increase time ( I realize this is a four letter word)to prep and discuss planning/ideas with colleagues especially in sciences that have tremendous set up and tear down times for labs |
| 48. | 4/10/2008 6:13:00 PM | Great goal. :) (Assuming, of course, time is allowed) |
| 49. | 4/10/2008 7:09:00 PM | Allow teachers time during early releases to work on their own curriculum instead of what administration decides they need to work on |