Simpsonville Elementary • 200 Morton Avenue • Simpsonville, SC 29681 • (864)355-8300	Saturday, May 26, 2012

Professional Development

The administration at Simpsonville Elementary has always encouraged staff to go to workshops and conferences based upon individual teacher’s interests. Last year, each teacher was allotted two days of release time to attend professional development workshops or conferences of their choice. They were asked to report what was learned during grade-level meetings.   3^rd, 4^th, and 5^th grade teachers attended the district-sponsored Learning Focused training and shared strategies with their grade levels.  MAP training for all 2^nd, 3^rd, 4^th, and 5^th grade teachers was held in October to review MAP data and learn new strategies for differentiating instruction based on DesCartes.

&             The School District of Greenville County requires 24 hours of Professional Development for each teacher per year.  12 hours must be offered at the school level and 12 are selected by the staff.  The district provides 10 professional Development days each year when students are not present. 

For the 2007-08 school year we had 4 professional development/workdays in August.  We also had October 19 and 22, January 14, March 21, May 26 and June 5 and 6.  After we developed our vision, we determined all the strategies and activities required to implement the vision.  Our action study teams surveyed our staff, researched strategies and programs to determine what would best meet our students’ needs.  From our comprehensive Action Plan that appears in the Quality Planning section of our school portfolio, we developed the following professional development plan which is tied to our mission and vision. Link to Professional Development Calendar       Link to Professional Development Plan List

IMPACT

          Teachers have attended many professional development sessions this year that were arranged by the administration on campus.  Thirty-seven teachers plus the media specialist and instructional coach have completed Intel and other staff members will complete the training in the summer of 2009.

All teachers at SES filled out a Professional Development Needs Survey that included personal and professional goals needed to focus on the vision for our school. There is excitement among the faculty about the accomplishments we have made this year with the implementation of many of strategies we have learned. Some of the offerings at Simpsonville were Closing the Gap, Jazzing Up Your Website, Lexia software, Promethean Board Training, Special Ed Issues, TESOL strategies, Integrating Movement and Learning and Differentiated Instruction. We are anxious to attend next year's sessions of professional development that have been requested by the staff that would enhance our own personal and professional growth. 

IDEAS FOR PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

·    Using the science lab

·    Using the computer as a teaching tool (websites for the classroom)

·    Teaching in a one computer classroom

·    Using multiple computers in the classroom

·    Standards  "review"

·    Time to share good teaching methods, organization, discipline, etc.

·    Tech training for the computer lab

·    Writing in-services

·    Grant writing instructions/ideas

·    Promethean Board instruction

·    In-services on network software

·    Character education

·    Getting our parents involved in the classroom

·    Positive discipline method (whole school)

·    Using the Internet in the classroom

·    Integration of technology standards

·    Higher level math thinking/instruction

·    Integrating writing with science / social studies/ health

·    Curriculum pacing to the standards (creating a schedule)**

·    Student work on the website with photos**

·    More Social Studies/ Language Arts integration ideas

·    E-mail extended training

·    Website training

SUPPORT NEEDED TO IMPLEMENT THE VISION

·    Time

·    Training offered here at SES

·    Release time during the school day to have in-service (share subs)

·    Visit other schools/teachers on our grade levels

·    Team planning time that is useful, not to be taken away

·    District level training

·    Communication with teachers in the regular classroom

SUPPORT FROM OTHER STAFF MEMBERS

·    Grade level meetings that are more useful for classroom teaching than large group

·    Cooperation among teachers to implement student accommodations on IEPs, understand difficult scheduling

·    Keep computer lab technician for assistance/guidance

·    Share talents that you know would be an asset to your team.

·    Create and respect a safe learning environment where one's weaknesses will not be judged

·    Small group training whenever possible

·    Encourage parental support and participation in the classroom

SUMMARY OF PROGRESS

          Simpsonville Elementary is blessed with dedicated and extremely talented teachers.  After completing the self-study survey, the staff realized how much we needed to focus on the vision of the school and evaluate ourselves, personally and professionally, to see if we were prepared to make the vision a reality.  The staff realized that our own professional growth is necessary to pursue the goals and vision for our school's success.  It was realized by the self-study that we need the support and cooperation of our fellow teachers, administration, and parents to take our students' achievement to new heights.

NEXT STEPS

          During last school year, more professional development was offered on our campus than ever before.  There were many opportunities to participate in workshops that would be easily implemented in the classroom.  The faculty has realized that to move our students into higher levels of success and achievement, it is imperative that we work together. We must create a variety of ways to reach every child regardless of ability.  We have found that we must evaluate our individual teaching and assessment techniques and look closely at the results of our student achievement data.  This will help us look at the needs for improvement in our personal and professional development, as this will impact our student achievement.  In June 2006, the workshop with Dr. Lindi Metcalf provided many of our teachers the opportunity to work with peers to develop units of instruction that are integrated and planned with differentiation in mind.

This year we have had professional development training that is aligned with our vision.  The next step will be to develop an assessment by the grade level teams to evaluate whether or not we are truly implementing the vision after we have received requested training.  Next year, the calendar provides set times for weekly meetings of grade levels, vertical teams, and subject area teams.  Part of this time will be used to collect the student data, analyze, and evaluate it.  We hope to find areas of strengths that we may expand upon and weaknesses that can be noted.  The teams will then find ways to effectively address the weaknesses.

It was noted in our self-study many times that more time was needed to communicate and plan effectively with each other.  We have made greater attempts to share in planning, support each other, and share information gathered at in-services that were not attended by the entire team.