The Starkville-Oktibbeha Consolidated School District Board of Trustees approved the district’s professional development plan at its meeting Tuesday night.
The plan encompasses all the district’s professional development for the upcoming school year. It was approved 3 to 0 with School Board Vice President Lee Brand Jr. absent and one seat empty, following a presentation from Assistant Superintendent for Curriculum and Instruction Christy Maulding.
“All of our professional development will fall under the categories of learning communities, leadership focus, learning designs and implementation,” Maulding said. “They’re pretty self-explanatory.”
Professional development plan items approved included:
* Job descriptions for new literacy and math curriculum and intervention specialists.
* Approval of agreement with Core Educational Services for job-embedded professional development and on-site coaching of teachers and administrators at $179,400, with $100,000 to come from title funds and $79,400 to come from contingency funds.
* Approval of consulting services agreement with Performance Based Education Company, Inc. for 15 days of U.S. history teacher coaching at $19,500, paid with Title funds.
* Approval of an agreement with Performance Based Education Company, Inc. for Go Green at Starkville High School. Paid with Title funds at a cost of $28,800. A second quote was also received with a $31,200 price tag.
* Approval of contract agreement with PD Analytics from Aug. 1, 2017 to July 31, 2018 at a cost of $14,350 paid for with contingency funds. PD Analytics is an online solution tying professional development spending to measures of teacher success and student outcomes.
Any leftover Title funds will reimburse the district’s contingency funds.
Maulding said there would be some changes in the way the district handled professional development, with a focus more on accountability for personal professional development and processes than on programs.
“Our plan is to sustain that by building internal support,” Maulding said. “We don’t need to be spending the kind of money that we’re spending on consultants to train teachers. We need a solid core of instructional leaders that can work day in and day out with the same teachers and build relationships.”
The plan will be further expounded on as the district begins work on its strategic plan in October.
“We worked hard as a team, meeting with teachers and administrators, and (we) fell like this is really going to empower not only our beginning teachers, but throughout the district, all of our instructors,” Maulding said.