Professional Development / Overview

Professioinal Development

PISD PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

The PISD Board of Trustees has adopted a goal to recruit, challenge, and retain qualified and productive staff that is supportive in all areas. The primary purpose of the PISD Staff Development Plan is the betterment of students' learning experiences through increased effectiveness of teachers, specialists, and administrators. Professional development in an educational environment increases the effectiveness of all who are engaged in the teaching-learning process. Each member of the professional staff must develop his knowledge and skill to the maximum and the educational setting must provide a positive environment which encourages and establishes the necessary development machinery for each professional staff member to participate. PISD offers a variety of means to foster the continuing education of its personnel:

At the beginning of each school year, PISD provides keynote speakers to:

· set a positive tone for the new school year

· arouse attention for an important educational topic

· unify all staff members by affirming our organization’s purpose and goals for improving the educational experiences of our students.

These keynote speakers are educators, national speakers, authors, and experts in their fields. Through inspirational/motivational speeches, they share their knowledge and experiences with the staff of PISD providing insights and strategies to take back to the classroom. The following speakers are just a few who have been contracted to share their message with our staff:


Drs. Harry and Rosemary Wong	Dr. Ruby Payne	Hall Bowman	Wavelength	Vickie Sanderson	Dr. Eric Cupp

1. August In-service: PISD provides 7 days of professional development at the beginning of each school year.

The first 2 days of our August in-service are devoted to acclimating new teachers to the district.
The next 3 days are district-based, which includes a motivational speaker and presenters brought in to facilitate individual breakout sessions covering all core subject areas and a variety of other topics. The topics are determined from professional development needs assessments provided by the campus principals, areas of weakness observed from disaggregated student performance data, and district goals set by the Board of Trustees. The sessions are scheduled in the spring of each year, and they are entered into an online registration system. Before leaving for the summer in May, the teachers register for 1 full-day or 2 half-day sessions for each day of the in-service experience. The teachers are given the choice to select the sessions that best fit their subject areas and needs.
The last 2 days of our August in-service are devoted to campus-based initiatives and preparation for the first day of school.

2. Workshops/Conferences: During the school year, campus administrators offer on-site professional development sessions to teachers after school on a wide range of topics and send staff members to workshops/conferences outside of the district based on campus/teacher needs.

3. Summer Academies: All professional staff attend 2 academy days in the summer in which they work collaboratively by grade level/subject area to disaggrigate student performance data and plan instructional improvements.

4. Book Studies: All district administrators participate in book studies, and campus principals often conduct book studies on their campuses. Book study groups promote conversations among school staff that focus on issues related to school change and the exchange of ideas for instructional improvements.

PISD's maintains a Professional Development Library at the administration building that contains workshop videos, books, and periodicals on a variety of educational topics. Administrators may check out titles to use in campus staff development sessions, and teachers may check out titles individually to earn CPE credits. CPE credit certificates are provided upon request.

PISD has established acounts for all PISD teachers with Eduphoria School Objects Workshop which is a Professional development management system that streamlines staff course registration, portfolios and NCLB and SBEC reporting.

PISD has established acounts for all PISD teachers with Project Share, The Texas Education Agency's (TEA) new initiative that explores the development and delivery of high quality professional development in an interactive and engaging learning environment. Project Share utilizes a collection of Web 2.0 tools and applications to provide professional development resources for teachers across the state and build professional learning communities where educators can collaborate and participate in online learning opportunities.

PISD maintains a shared service agreements with Region 10 Educational Service Center departments that provide professional development workshops free of charge to district staff throughout the school year as well as during the summer on all topics relevant to the educational environment. Region 10 provides workshops at their regional service center, indistrict, and via teleconference.

VideoConferencing

PISD has a room designated for video conferencing and has a portable video conferencing station that can utilized at campuses and classrooms across the district. Video conferencing allows staff members to tie into training sessions off campus without travel.