School Professional Development Analysis

School Professional Development Analysis

Margaret M Stock

Grand Canyon University

EAD-523

Jimmy Hattabaugh

May 25, 2022

School Professional Development Analysis

For this assignment I chose to evaluate my campus’ bi-weekly reading professional

developments. These are created through collaboration with the district, academic coaches, and

administration to meet the needs of the district and individual campuses. Overall, I feel my

current campus has a strong professional development program I would like to one day mimic on

my own campus, but there is always room for improvement.

Increasing Staff Capacity

Our bi-weekly reading professional developments aligns to my campus mission by

working towards creating college and career ready students (EPISD, 2021). When there is not

information or techniques coming from the district, we are reviewing data from unit tests or

iStation. When we look at unit tests, we are breaking questions down to their standard and

specific standard strand. We use this to plan for our intervention blocks, while continuing with

the curriculum map during our actual reading block time. With the iStation data we gear it into

our small groups, integrating it into our daily small group lessons to help the students grow in

their specific areas of need. This is also a time where we can share what is and isn’t working in

our classrooms or ask for support with skills.

Principal’s Roles and Actions

My campus principal is very active in our classrooms. He stops by almost every day to at

least say hi to the children and that he becomes a familiar face to them. The principal sets

expectations, either from himself or the district, of how classrooms need to be run and what

needs to be taught. He puts a lot of faith in us that between our personal teaching styles and
School Professional Development Analysis

professional developments that we will meet the district expectations and we don’t need to be

“micromanaged.” There are components we need to include in our day, for example in reading

we must be doing poetry routine and small groups and walk throughs and lesson plan checks

show our preparedness and execution of these components.

Teachers’ Roles

As a teacher we are expected to come to professional developments prepared with

materials and data recorded. While in the professional development we are expected to stay

focused and have open dialogue about our glows and grows. This expectation will not only help

us better understand curriculum but also to better teach and support our students’ needs.

Continuous Improvement Plan Alignment

On our Campus Improvement Plan there are goals relating to administering assessments

for beginning, middle, and end of the year, funding tutors, funding substitutes to attend more

lengthy professional developments, and to build reading foundations to close the gaps for our at-

risk students (EPISD, 2021). By having bi-weekly professional developments we can review the

data thoroughly to identify gaps that students, or groups of students, have. The funding for all

day substitutes allows us to also go beyond breaking down the data but collaborate and plan

lessons for our students.

Research-Based Instructional/Best Practices

Through the use of professional development, we can focus in on best practices for our

students, and not just churning out basic lessons. For example, we are able to look at our read
School Professional Development Analysis

alouds and come up higher order thinking questions for our students to help them dive deeper

into a text (George Lucas Educational Foundation, 2011). Reviewing the data will help us to

know how rigorous to make our whole and small group lessons, to also focus on the students

(George Lucas Educational Foundation, 2011). Best practice is always putting your students’

needs first, while meeting the standard expectations from the state.

Evaluating PD Program

When it comes to best practices teachers are always encouraged to share about what they

learned in a professional development, as not everyone is always able to attend (George Lucas

Educational Foundation, 2011). We often take what we learned in literacy professional

developments and work with our teammates to apply it into our planning for our students.

Keeping students as the center focus both during and after the professional development (George

Lucas Educational Foundation, 2011). If we are to take a professional development off campus

the collaboration isn’t always as strong afterwards, this is something as a school campus we can

work on. My team specifically will bring resources and share them with each other, but other

grades are not as forthcoming. As a principal I would have some type of system set up for

teachers to share information with their grade level, or group that would also benefit, from any

professional developments attended and paid for through the district. This would ensure that

there is both space for innovation and that teams are working effectively (Miller, 2020).
School Professional Development Analysis

References

Campus Improvement Team. (2021). El Paso Independent School District Green Elementary

School 2021-2022 Campus Improvement Plan. Campus Improvement Plan. Retrieved May

20, 2022, from https://www.episd.org/site/handlers/filedownload.ashx?

moduleinstanceid=22878&dataid=42555&FileName=GReen%20Elementary%20School

%20Plan.pdf

George Lucas Educational Foundation. (2011, November 30). 10 powerful instructional

strategies. Edutopia. Retrieved May 19, 2022, from https://www.edutopia.org/stw-school-

turnaround-student-engagement-video

Miller, A. (2020, January 4). Creating effective professional learning communities. Edutopia.

Retrieved May 20, 2022, from https://www.edutopia.org/article/creating-effective-

professional-learning-communities
School Professional Development Analysis