Module 3 Part 4 and Part 2 Bell

  How do Professional Development Schools (PDSs) and/or PLCs create opportunities for teachers to become leaders? What examples of teacher leadership do you see in your PDS or what do you think might emerge if your school were to become a PDS? What examples of PLCs do you see in your school or organization? Have teacher leaders emerged from these PLCs?

Professional Development Schools (PDSs) and or PLCs create opportunities for teachers to become leaders by providing ongoing learning opportunities to teachers through their school or district. I am not currently teaching in Virginia Beach City Public Schools (VBCPS) but I have become familiar with their Professional Development Program (PDP). VBCPS has recently made some changes to the PDP by moving to professional development that is designed by teachers for teachers and they also have decided to move from a division focus to a site based approach. This approach will better meet the needs of the instructional staff at each school. VBCPS requires all instructional staff to earn at least 22 hours of professional development each school year. They have decided that only 6 hrs will be division sponsored instructional hours and the remaining 16 hrs will be site based and directly relate to the teacher’s current and primary assignment. The PDP offerings will focus on data, standards, and strategies needed to enrich instruction and sustain high quality learning for the students. VBCPS has determined that the site based hours will be based off of the school’s Plan for Continuous Improvement (PCI). I believe that moving to a site based approach on what professional development to offer to teachers at each school will be extremely beneficial. No longer will instructional staff have to sit through PDP course that possibly do not directly impact their school or the needs of the school. I would believe that this would also help and encourage many teacher leaders to emerge more easily due to them being more comfortable with their surroundings and working with their immediate colleagues. This seems to be a great strategy for implementing professional development, hopefully many other districts are or will use a more site based approach to help teachers and teacher leaders develop. 

If you were designing a program or professional development intended to prepare teacher leaders to take advantage of these multiple pathways, what would it look like? What learning experiences would you include?

After becoming familiar with how VBCPS implements their PDP, I think that this is a very effective and good model for how a PDP program should be implemented. Having courses for teachers that are directly related to their school environment and also to their content area is a great way to inspire teachers and help teacher leaders to emerge. The first school district that I was employed with had a PDP as well but it was not individualized like the VBCPS PDP model. I attended professional development sessions but rarely felt the importance to my content area of art and other times it was even difficult to see how the topics or sessions would benefit our school at all. So if I was in charge of the pdp program I would want the input from all teachers at the school on what types of courses they would be interested in and would try to meet the needs of everyone and their content areas.