Summers County Procedures for Ensuring 18 Hours of
High Quality Professional Development for Core Teachers
1. Each school has a school professional development council.
2. We have a county professional development council with each school represented on the
council.
3. The council begins meeting in September for the next school year.
4. In the first meeting we go over the county policy and talk about the PD for the previous year and
review the plan for the current year.
5. In the second meeting, usually in Nov or Dec we discuss PD issues, review the PD of the current
year, and start talking about the needs for the next school year.
6. In the third meeting, we review the PD in each school to see if it is working and if we are on
track. We discuss what needs to be covered in the county meeting for the upcoming year. The
county council members work with their school councils over the next month to plan 6 hours of
PD for one of the opening days, 10 hours for the ISE days, and 18 hours for the early out days.
The PD they plan has to meet one or more of the 7 codes and the planner must designate on the
form which of the codes are met. In addition, the PD must be “based upon scientific research
and on the needs of the school/school district, be sustained and ongoing, and provide review
collaboration.” The council members email their plans to the curriculum secretary who compiles
the final document to present to the full council for approval.
7. In the final meeting, usually in May, the curriculum director presents each school’s plan to the
council for approval.
Following these procedures, all teachers both core and others are able to get more than the required 18
hours of high quality PD. In addition, in all elementary schools, we have collaboration on a weekly basis
which counts as high quality PD. At the secondary level we encourage vertical team collaboration during
planning time. In all schools we provide coaching and embedded PD with our TISs and our reading
coach.
There are sign in sheets, agendas, and minutes for most of the PD session. Many of the PD sessions end
with participants completing the PD evaluation form. These forms are tallied and shared with the board.
After the PD session, the leader, usually a teacher leader or coach, sends the sign in sheet to the
curriculum secretary. She enters the information into a computer program her son created for Summers
County.