Supporting teachers’ growth and development is the most important move a district can make.
School districts across the country have one fundamental asset in common: teachers. According to the pivotal Coleman Report, teacher quality “significantly affects student performance” more than any other single resource or factor. Teaching is the business, and the quality of your business is contingent upon how committed your district is to fostering teacher development.
When school districts’ leaders acknowledge that their teachers are their greatest asset, they should also acknowledge their role in maintaining and improving the effectiveness of their teachers. This requires a robust approach to improving teaching and learning from district level leadership to program leadership, including direct supports for teachers in their classrooms.
Here are five moves school districts can make to ensure they are hiring well and supporting growth and development.
1. Hire Quality Teachers
It might seem obvious that hiring quality teachers is important. What’s not obvious is how hiring managers identify a quality teacher through their interview process. It’s not enough to filter resumes based on experience or education; a quality teacher must also demonstrate through the interview process their ability to plan for instruction, their commitment to progress monitoring and assessing for learning, and their commitment to fostering positive student-teacher relationships. Interview questions should dig deeper into these important topics and districts should consider a performance component to the interview process that showcases a candidate’s work in the classroom with students. It’s an amazing task for hiring managers to be able to identify just the right combination of expertise and compassion to be effective in the classroom. For these reasons, districts need to consider interviewing differently to better identify quality teacher candidates.
Teacher quality cannot start and stop with the hiring and recruitment process. Instead, districts need to focus on retention through professional development and support programs that help every educator continue to improve their craft. This can be achieved through mentoring and induction initially, but a more robust system will extend professional growth beyond the first few years of employment.
2. Build the Structures for District-Wide Professional Learning
Most districts have a mentoring and induction program for new hires that introduces teachers to district policy and practice, and also trains teachers on teaching and learning expectations through their educator evaluation tool. Though these items are important, induction programs should also build in a way for educators to learn about district priorities.
For example, districts should consider having their superintendent teach a course to train new hires in what the district values in terms of curriculum, instruction, and assessment, including the goals of the strategic plan. What better way to help new hires understand where the district is headed?
Districts often miss the mark when they do not merge mentoring and induction with a robust professional learning infrastructure. School districts committed to professional learning should employ a learning cycle, much like their curriculum or program review cycle, that allows for opportunities to revisit important learnings and keep district priorities fresh in the work of their teachers regardless of the number of years of service. Moreover, onboarding staff should include training on instructional technology and expectations around its use, training on approaches to instruction such as UDL or project-based learning, and training on approaches to assessment. Coupling these offerings with refresher courses for existing staff that are tied to the goals of the district strategic plan, helps maintain direction. These steps will ensure that all staff are up-to-speed, ready to contribute, and able to meet district goals in the classroom.
But to be successful in this approach, formal coursework or training opportunities must be accompanied by content-specific instructional coaching and professional learning communities. Access to these daily supports maintains momentum with district goals.
3. Support Content-Specific Instructional Coaching
The Learning Policy Institute has identified key elements of effective professional development for teachers. Content-specific professional learning, active learning, and collaboration over a sustained period of time are top priorities. If we want our teachers to continue to improve, we have to put in place a professional learning structure that aids them in the classroom.
Content-specific instructional coaching gives teachers the opportunity to practice and reflect on their approach to teaching and learning. When instructional coaches are utilized effectively, they work in tandem with content teachers to support planning and implementing lessons and provide feedback and reflection in the moment. A content-specific instructional coach can also take district priorities and translate them to their content in a way that accelerates change.
For example, if a district priority is social-emotional learning, a content coach can make connections between SEL and the curriculum. This might include co-planning for integrating SEL into a lesson or pushing into a classroom to support a teacher in implementing an SEL strategy with their students. The content-specific instructional coach removes the mystery of how district priorities translate to the classroom experience and supports teachers directly with making those improvements.
Districts may wish to consider an alternative approach to instructional coaching that allows for a consulting teacher to support instructional improvement through a Peer Assistance and Review program. While the overall cost may be equivalent, the bottom line is that continuous improvement requires continuous attention. Content-specific instructional coaching or consulting teachers both gift classroom teachers with a consistent resource to commit to improving.
4. Make Time for Professional Learning Communities
Professional learning communities, critical friend groups, or common planning time are all ways in which districts can provide time for their teachers to collaborate. It’s not simply time that teachers need though, it’s collaboration. Allocating time for teachers to work together consistently during the school day must be coupled with professional learning that supports the success of your professional learning community (PLC).
A key priority to effective professional learning communities is a strong facilitator. Facilitators of effective PLC meetings support the curriculum through common learning and assessment. They do so with data and tuning protocols that make student learning the focus of the discussion, removing the sting of teacher-teacher comparisons. PLC facilitators support teachers in a cycle of learning that is collaborative with the common goal of improving student understanding. These facilitators should be your program leaders; content-specific leaders that work with district leadership to support improving teaching and learning in tandem with aligning progress to district goals.
5. Create a Culture of Reflective Practice
Districts might employ each of the approaches to professional learning above with gusto, but without a focus on culture these efforts are moot. In fact, how district leaders communicate and engage with their teachers can support or hinder collaboration and reflection. Change happens when districts create a culture that embraces improvement and reflective practice.
Building a commitment to continuous improvement begins with building a team. Leaders must focus on building a positive culture through relationships and setting the tone. District leaders who build positive relationships with their educators do so through collaborative leadership and shared vision, giving their teachers and program leaders a seat at the table in district decision making. This means that professional learning communities should extend beyond improving instruction, with additional PLC structures to support school and district improvement that model reflective practice.
Looking Ahead
Our teachers are the lifeblood of our district and the most critical resource to meeting district goals. Districts that understand teachers are their biggest asset, work with teachers and support improvements to teaching and learning by allocating the time and resources required. All teachers and administrators must understand and embrace that they are a part of a team whose goal is to help each other help kids.
