Supporting Educators for Student Achievement

Induction with Mentoring

Individualized Support for
New Hires

Developing and Retaining
Great Educators

 

 

Developing & Retaining Great Educators

Good recruitment practices, an information rich hiring process, and a comprehensive induction process all help educators get off to a good start.

However, it is the complex interaction of working conditions within schools that is key to retaining educators and helping them to become great educators.

Professional development that is job-embedded, focused on student achievement, and tied to school-wide improvement is central to creating the working conditions that nurture and support highly skilled educators.

 

For educators, going to school must be as much about learning as it is about teaching. They must have time each day to learn, plan lessons, critique student work, and support improvement as members of learning teams. Schools must be learning communities where staff members establish common goals for student success. Staff development cannot be something educators do only on specified days in the school calendar. It must be part of every educator’s daily work schedule. (S. Hirsch, 2001)

High-quality professional development:

  • Focuses on teachers as central to student learning
  • Focuses on individual, collegial, and organizational improvement
  • Promotes continuous inquiry and improvement embedded in the daily life of schools
  • Is planned collaboratively by those who will participate in and facilitate that development
  • Enables teachers to develop experience in subject content, teaching strategies, uses of technologies, and all other elements that pertain to teaching to high standards
  • Requires substantial time and other resources
  • Is driven by a coherent long-term plan (U.S. Department of Education Professional Development Team, 1994)

NH Department of Education Professional Development links:

Professional Development Master Plan Toolkit
Professional Development Master Plan Rubric/Review Template
Ed 512, Staff Development and Recertification
Frequently asked questions regarding Ed 512

NHEON (NH Educators Online)- An Educator's Resource for Curriculum Planning and Professional Development
http://www.nheon.org/

NH's Local Educational Support Center Network provides high quality training opportunities to empower educators and show a positive correlation to student achievement. Here are the regional centers:

Capital Area Center for Educational Support
Greater Manchester Professional Development Center
Seacoast Professional Development Center
Southwestern NH Education Support Center
North Country Education Services
Sugar River Professional Development Center

The Teacher Working Conditions Toolkit includes recommendations and strategies to empower community members, teachers, principals, administrators and policymakers to improve teacher working conditions, including time, facilities and resources, empowerment, leadership and professional development, which are all shown to have an impact on whether teachers stay and students learn. 

The National Staff Development Council offers a selection of resources that will help you explore the issue of time, learn strategies to use time to serve improvement efforts, and improve teacher learning.

Sparks, D., & Hirsch, S. (1997). A new vision for staff development. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development and National Staff Development Council. (Book) Link to review:
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0JSD/is_3_55/ai_77195860

Joan Richardson, Think outside the clock: Create time for professional learning, Tools for Schools, August/September 2002
http://www.nsdc.org/library/publications/tools/tools8-02rich.cfm

Diane Curtis, Treating teachers as professionals, The George Lucas Educational Foundation, 2001
http://www.edutopia.org/php/article.php?id=Art_412&key=238

Schools bring professional development in-house, Education World, 2005

A list of activities that can support job-embedded professional development http://teacherretention.edreform.net/download/139/A:/jobembedded.htm

Teacher training: Is your staff development program working?, Education World, 2005


 
NH Department of Education - 101 Pleasant Street - Concord NH 03301
Phone: (603) 271-3495 Fax: (603) 271-1953 - TDD Access: Relay NH 711