Akin Road Elementary
The staff development goal for Akin Road Elementary during the 21-22 school year was: We will dedicate time to building connections and classroom communities. We have put a major focus on Equity and how to connect our young learners to conversations about celebrating differences and how to recognize and react to prejudice and stereotypes as a staff. We took part in training sessions and had discussion groups aimed at allowing staff to grow both personally and professionally to see every learner’s worth and embrace human diversity in each other and our community. We also dedicated professional learning time to literacy and looking at how to facilitate the usage of the MN ELA standards and personalized learning. Akin Road educators also spent 8 hours of their staff development time on personalized topics. At the end of the year, they shared their learning with the rest of the staff.
Farmington Elementary
Our Farmington Elementary staff development goal was to continue the 7 Mindsets with the students and families of our community. We continued all school projects, morning meetings and school and home connections through involving parents in volunteer opportunities in the school. 7 Mindsets is a social emotional curriculum that introduces 7 different Mindsets throughout the year. We spoke a lot about how the social emotional needs of our students need to be met before we can expect them to sit down and do the academics piece. Getting to know how our students learn is important in building the trust with them. We were also very purposeful to do this with support staff like paraprofessionals, administrative assistants, nurse, etc. We saw positive interactions with students and teachers and relationships becoming stronger. Throughout the year we also focused on mindfulness for our teachers, as we know the impact stress can take on for teachers. The feedback from staff and families was very positive as we found new ways to connect virtually and still focus on our 7 Mindsets.
Meadowview Elementary
The percentage of students in grades 2-5 at Meadowview Elementary School who meet or exceed their fall to spring individual RIT Growth Projection on the NWEA MAP in mathematics will increase from 62.2% in spring 2021 to 64.2% in spring 2022.
We continued our work towards implementing a cohesive, consistent approach to our math instruction. We dedicated PLC time at each grade level to ensure that our newer math curriculum is carefullyaligned with the state standards. We’ve also dedicated time to vertical conversations to determine where we recognize patters of strength or weakness as students progress throughout the grade levels. The work around these goals will be continuous in the 2022-23 school year. This work will benefit our students because it is focused, vertically aligned, and includes intentional scaffolding of our math instruction.
North Trail Elementary
In 2021-2022 our staff development goal was focused on achievement gaps due to COVID-19, personal self-care, literacy best practices, technological development, relationship building, and equity. We kicked off the year with professional speaker, Curt Slater, focusing on the topic of student and adult social emotional learning and self care. Later staff development sessions were used for Literacy, Equity, ELL and Mental Health-Suicide Awareness. To expose and revisit the importance of early reading foundations, The Big Five was a focus with support from district staff members through both presentation style and make and take sessions. The Big Five work reviewed phonemic awareness, phonics, and fluency and then there was allocated time to explore different resources for use in the classroom going forward for each area. Outcomes for teachers included make and take tools for immediate implementation, an increase in comfort level and use of tools and strategies to reach all learners.
Teachers throughout the building worked individually, as teams, and groups throughout the year to explore equity goals. Many staff participated in book studies, dove into district resources provided by our equity leadership team including the monthly equity newsletter, and researched ways to enhance diversity in our curriculum. Equity team members completed a building equity walkthrough at the end of the school year to assess areas of strength and needed growth in visuals and/or representation of various cultures throughout the school. This equity work has a positive impact on all students at NTE in terms of academic achievement, relationships, and a sense of self in our schools.
Riverview Elementary
At Riverview Elementary, our goal for the 2021-2022 school year was to increase percentage of all students in grades 2-5 who meet or exceed their fall to spring (2nd grade) or spring to spring (3-5) individual RIT Growth Projection on the NWEA MAP in reading from 50% in spring 2022 to 53% in spring 2022. The percentage of students meeting or exceeding their fall to spring 2021/22 NWEA MAP RIT growth was 48.8%.
To meet this goal, we worked in our Professional Learning Communities to incorporate specific skills into reading and math daily lessons. Teachers received training in AVMR and Sonday Systems to build their knowledge in the foundational skills students need in number sense and phonemic awareness. Approximately 80 staff participated in our staff development activities.
Boeckman Middle School
The Boeckman Middle School staff of about 60 focused their professional development on the core components of the Personalized Learning Honeycomb, and implementation of competency based rubrics in place of letter grades. This year we utilized a teacher in a half time facilitator of instruction support position in our three learning models. She was able to meet individually with teachers to set goals around reporting and personalizing learning opportunities. She also works with leadership around development and implementation of professional development for staff.
We also dedicated much of our professional development during the 21-22 school year to supporting a PBIS coach and a team of teachers that made up our PBIS committee. The coach and committee attended PBIS regional trainings and brought back professional development opportunities for all staff. As a result of this professional development, we have implemented behavior matrix in all learning and common spaces at school, provided a learning matrix for distance learning, created tools to reinforce positive behaviors and structure learning experiences around undesired minor behaviors. We bridged the work with the Personalized Learning Honeycomb and PBIS through the implementation of Personal Skills for Success. The Personal Skills for Success provide a framework for teachers to facilitate student learning of executive functioning skills. The work done last year has led us to focus on the integration of competency, personalized learning, and equitable practices for the 21-22 school year with the goal being that we are identifying student needs and meeting those with appropriately designed personalized instruction.
Dodge Middle School
At Levi P. Dodge Middle School, our goal was to offer more personalized professional development opportunities for all staff. Our staff of teachers, paraprofessionals, and licensed non-instructional staff engaged in self-directed high quality staff development opportunities by meeting in purposeful department specific teams, grade level teams, and full school trainings. Additionally, individuals were given 8 hours to personalize their own professional development. Examples include webinars, podcasts, book studies, courses, and content specific conferences. We found teachers felt comfortable taking risks to customize their own learning. This naturally modeled, for students, the power of taking calculated risks and not allowing perceived “failure” to limit how they learn or their potential. This goal is a work in progress, and staff at Dodge Middle School are moving forward on personalizing learning for students and personalizing professional development for themselves. Additionally, we have aligned our resources so that we will again have a Facilitator of Instructional Support to enhance the professional growth of staff at a personal level.
Farmington High School
At Farmington High School, our goal is to increase the overall top score average of all students in grade 11 at Farmington High School on the ACT from a composite score of 20.3 in 2021 to21.3 in 2022. Currently, all of our 11th grade students are required to take the ACT, which is why this is a better means of assessment than the MCAs. To meet this goal, our teachers wrote their individual growth development plans around customized, personalized learning for students. Throughout the building we have been exploring and creating more opportunities for students to demonstrate competencies through experiential learning.
Our staff development team provides opportunities for teachers to gain skills in the areas they feel need growth. Staff then follow up with work in collaborative groups at least once a week. Teachers are also given opportunities to personalize their learning by reading resources provided, watching webinars online, attending Friday morning tech sessions, and EdCamp style professional development days. This year we will also be working specifically on the Profiles of a Lifelong Learner as part of our District Strategic Plan.
Here are some examples of ongoing staff development opportunities:
- Ongoing professional development sessions such as: Playposit, Schoology, Google Drive, Mental Health Issues, Classroom Management Strategies, Best Practice with EL students
- District alignment of science standards and sequence
- Competency based grading
- Writing rubrics and competencies for areas of expertise
- Equity training sessions offered by our Equity Leadership Team
- Alignment of Profiles of a Lifelong Learner with learning design in the classroom
We will continue to evaluate our staff development opportunities to align with our district strategic plan and our building goals.