When I think about my district and culturally responsive teaching, I built a professional
development day surrounded around our district priorities, but also topics that would be relevant
useful for teachers. Currently, our district is in the process of learning about and implementing
standards based learning/grading. This will lead to more rigorous lesson plans as well as
improved parent, student, and teacher communication about student progress. Furthermore, our
district is in the process of implementing personalized learning strategies, which will focus on
student centered instruction, culturally diversity, as well as moving the teacher into a more
facilitator role.
When planning the professional development day and working with the staff, it will be important
for me to be mindful of the union contract and the parameters of how the day can be structured.
Our contract states that ⅓ of Teacher Work Days are given to teachers to work. So, I will be
using that ⅓ time on another day after speaking with the union leaders to allow for a full day of
professional development for the teachers. It is important to keep that open communication with
the leaders so that they are aware of what the day(s) will look throughout the year so they can let
their members know that this day will be fully used by the district for continued learning
opportunities.
Furthermore, as the district/school leader, I will need to make sure I understand all staff and
provide a variety of learning opportunities. For example, PE teachers do not always feel that
professional development days are times that they can relate with since there is curricular topics
throughout the day. The professional development sessions that will be presented will be
applicable to all staff. There will be ways for them to reflect on their own teaching practices to
improve. There will be some academic curricular topics, but also opportunities for other non
academic teachers to benefit from this day.
Lastly, I will follow Brierton et al’s model of “lead, model, and facilitate” throughout the day.
There will be opportunities for the district leader to lead the staff through learning opportunities,
teachers and other leaders to model a task/planning, and lastly to facilitate discussion or provide
opportunities for teachers to learn and reflect in their own way. School leaders need to know
when it is time to lead, then when it is appropriate to model the learning, and lastly facilitate
discussion to improve practices.
References
Brierton, J.T., Graham, B.T., Tomal, D.R. Wilhite, R.K. (2016). ​Ethics and politics in school
leadership​. Lanham, MA: Rowman & Littlefield Publications.