Moving beyond cafeteria thinking about staff development

(Vol. 2, No. 1 - Winter 1998)

Beyond the Buffet

JCPS leaders believe better professional development can help teachers raise standards and expectations for themselves and their students. But can they find the time -- and change traditional "cafeteria line" thinking about teacher training?

By Holly Holland

On a Monday afternoon in early winter, 20 teaching team leaders and administrators gather in the library at Williams Middle School, waiting for the start of a special training session on academic standards. Students shout in the hallways and the intercom squawks announcements, reminding everyone of the long work day just completed and the hours of preparation for tomorrow still ahead. There will be papers to correct, lessons to create, and a full schedule of parent conferences to attend the next day.

The room is stuffy and cramped, and most of the teachers look fatigued. By the time Principal Jan Calvert passes around soft drinks and snacks and gives her team leaders a long list of school administrivia to share with their colleagues, almost half of the allotted hour-long meeting time has run off the clock. The conditions for learning complex, new teaching strategies are hardly ideal, although they are typical. The American school day was never designed with time for professional development in mind.

Nevertheless, Cheryl DeMarsh, director of the Clark Foundation's middle school initiative in Jefferson County, and Marcia Lile, a Clark Fellow, plunge ahead with their professional development activity. The Williams staff is well aware of the challenge they face. As one of 11 local middle schools whose stagnant test scores have placed them in the state's "decline" category, Williams has less than a year to make significant improvements or be declared a school "in crisis" under the terms set forth in the Kentucky Education Reform Act (KERA).

As a declining school, Williams has been receiving advice from a Kentucky "distinguished educator (DE)" for the past year. And principal Calvert has pushed her faculty to move beyond the standardized strategies for test score improvement recommended by the DE. In her quest to become a "data-driven" school, Calvert has pored over district test results and determined that the typical 6th grader enters Williams with very low reading scores. In response, Williams has made reading improvement its top priority and invested precious training time in helping all teachers become "teachers of reading."

Calvert also wants her teachers to deepen their understanding of the quality of work their students are doing in every subject, and how that work compares with the work of a "proficient" student. So she's invited DeMarsh and Lile to help teachers begin to scrutinize student work for clues about ways to do a better job.

DeMarsh begins by acknowledging the hard work required of every "STAR" school-the state's label for schools with Distinguished Educators. Not only must STAR schools analyze the entire curriculum and revamp the school improvement plan, every teacher must develop a personal plan of improvement.

Calvert, DeMarsh and Lile call on the teachers to do even more -- and to try something new. During the next few months, the Williams staff will collectively examine samples of the work their students do, much as physicians study x-rays and lab results, trying to gauge the health of the patient and the effectiveness of the treatment.

"I've been out of the classroom only a few months," says Lile, a former social studies teacher at Kammerer Middle School and now one of five Clark Fellows who are helping the district redesign middle school teaching around academic standards. "And after 29 years of teaching I can honestly say that the collegial examination of (student) work is about the most powerful professional growth experience you can have. It's worth the risk." (Eavesdrop on some Williams teachers discussing student work.)

New conversations about teaching

During the discussion, one teacher questions the value of sharing examples of student work because each instructor has a different way of evaluating assignments.

"My standards may not be the same as her standards," he says, pointing to a colleague. The teacher has unwittingly pointed out the importance of beginning conversations about standards. When teachers work in isolation, Lile says, they can't be certain they're holding students to the same yardstick. Students should learn the same things and be held to the same standards, no matter which teacher teaches them math or science or social studies.

When the Williams teachers break up into smaller groups and begin to examine a sample of student writing, Lile's point is quickly made. What one teacher considers "proficient," another does not. And while one teacher suggests that students should be graded for effort as well as achievement, others argue such a strategy is a cop-out for the student and the teacher. It soon becomes apparent that teachers are all over the map when it comes to judging the quality of student work.

"These kinds of interchanges among teachers are very new," Sherry DeMarsh says when the session ends. "There are more conversations going on K-12 around the issue of standards and expectations than we've ever had in the district before."

DeMarsh attributes the new conversations to KERA and the tremendous pressure it creates for students to perform at higher levels. "We must show kids models of what quality work is so they will know that a one- or two-sentence answer is not enough," she says. "We have to ask ourselves, 'What is quality?' 'What does it mean for me as a teacher?'"

Throughout this school year and next, DeMarsh and others plan to ask those questions over and over again as they visit Jefferson County's middle schools. Their goal will be to use professional development to help educators advance their practice and set higher expectations for themselves and their students. To do so, they must change traditional beliefs about the purpose of training so that educators begin to view professional development as a critical tool in meeting state standards. And they must change habits that have allowed too many educators to coast.

The professional development "buffet"

For years, Jefferson County's professional development offerings resembled the dishes displayed in a cafeteria line. The quality of courses educators could choose varied as much as the entrees on a steam table. The emphasis was on quantity -- making sure that teachers completed the requisite hours of training each year-not on the quality of the nourishment they received.

Individual schools sometimes offered intensive training, and occasionally the school district brought in national experts to work with willing teachers on an ongoing basis. But overall, the menu was loaded with empty calories.

"I know a lot of teachers miss the old days. You went to a professional development session and somebody talked to you about something," says Linda Miller, principal of Johnson Traditional Middle School. "But 99 percent of those things never got back to the classroom. I know. I used to get excited about something I'd heard at a seminar, but then I'd get back to the classroom and forget it. It's in a stack somewhere on a shelf."

A review of the professional development courses offered by the school district during the past few years makes the point clearly. In 1990, for example, about one-third of the sessions involved field trips to places like Mammoth Cave, Boonesbor-ough, and Blackacre Nature Preserve. Nearly one-fourth of the workshops discussed procedural issues such as setting up science fairs and other academic competitions. Not one of the sessions focused on standards or long-term strategies for improving instruction and learning.

In contrast, the courses offered in the 1997-98 program guide reflect much more depth, including seminars demonstrating best practices in art, music, foreign languages, humanities, and science instruction; using performance assessments to guide instruction; and preparing principals for instructional leadership.

"I want to challenge you to go a step further, beyond participation, to assessing the impact of your new knowledge and skills on student learning," Deborah Walker, executive director of the Gheens Professional Development Academy, wrote in the program guide.

"If you are a teacher, this means determining how applying new knowledge to the classroom, and thus changing your teaching practices, results in gains in student achievement.... "

Such reflective questioning indicates a new direction for professional training in the Jefferson County Public Schools and suggest that future courses will be much more substantive and challenging. Many schools are moving away from one-shot workshops toward continuous training that emphasizes the successful implementation of new skills. Yet there are several barriers to extending those opportunities to every educator in the district.

One limitation is the lack of time available for staff training. By union contract, teachers must complete 24 hours (the equivalent of four work days) of paid training each year and spend up to three hours a month in after-school faculty meetings. Although many teachers exceed the requirements, the ones who need the most training usually meet the minimum mandate and nothing more.

In addition, there are so many competing demands for the available training time that new agendas for change often get buried under the old. Teachers are being asked to study the state's new subject content guidelines and align their curricula accordingly; develop plans for improving school test scores; keep up to date with changes in their major fields; create performance standards for students; and respond to all the individual problems within a school, such as the negative influence of gangs. Every year the list lengthens. How can they squeeze it all in?

The teachers at Williams Middle School are a good example. They will attempt to refine their examination of student work throughout the year, but to do so they will have to steal a half-hour here and there from some other pressing need-and hope it all makes sense in the end.

"More and more of our time is being mandated," says Laura Kirchner, president of the Jefferson County Teachers Association and a former middle school teacher. "It's like you're being pulled in 50 different directions with all the things you need. But we want help in our (teaching) fields and we want time to assimilate it in our classrooms."

Too tired, too few subs

Because of complaints that teachers so often were extending their work day without compensation, the school district agreed two years ago to pay teachers $20 an hour (up from $8.98) for approved training. Advocates of more training feared the higher cost would mean less professional development. But another issue has arisen. Few teachers have taken advantage of the opportunity to earn more money and gain new skills, says Superintendent Stephen Daeschner. He and others believe most teachers are too tired to do more.

The problem is compounded by the short supply of qualified substitute teachers. Although the district has recruited more substitutes-resulting in a net gain of about 300 more people in the past two years -- there still aren't enough people to fill all the requests. Higher teacher absences due to illness, personal emergencies, or just plain weariness have absorbed most of the new hires, leaving fewer resources for professional development. Between 1995 and 1996 alone, the cost for substitutes in the district rose by more than $400,000 -- compared to an increase of only $33,000 the year before.

Last school year, a total of 1,905 temporary teacher vacancies could not be filled. As a result, Daeschner has prohibited the scheduling of professional development activities on Mondays and Fridays, the two days with the highest demand for substitutes. Teachers still can request leave to attend training sessions outside the district on Mondays and Fridays, but substitutes often aren't available.

Linda Miller recalled the time last spring when she persuaded a young teacher to attend a two-day professional development conference in western Kentucky that she needed to improve her skills. Miller paid the registration and travel costs out of the school's budget and received approval for the leave from the central office. However, when the conference date arrived she couldn't get a substitute. Miller supervised the teacher's classes the first day but later had to ask her to leave the conference early and return to school because no one could fill in for her on the second day.

"I think one of the worst things we can do is to not have a good teacher in the room with a child," Daeschner said. "It pains me that there are times we can't cover teachers for illnesses or professional development with a qualified substitute. But I also believe one of the most important things is having enough professional development time. It's a real dilemma."

In fact, the dilemma has more to do with other leave (illness, emergency, and personal) than professional development days-which accounted for only about 12 percent of the substitute teaching last year. Whatever the cause, the fact remains that substitutes do not appear to be a viable way to significantly increase professional development time for teachers in Jefferson County.

Searching for more professional development time

Daeschner is looking at ways to change the school calendar to build in more opportunities for training. One plan would start the school year in the first week of August and provide one-week breaks in September and February. The more frequent breaks might reduce staff stress, Daeschner said, and enable more teachers to participate in ongoing professional development. But many teachers, parents and older students say the scheme interferes too much with summer plans. Thus far, the proposal has failed to draw much support and the school board has decided to postpone its consideration for at least a year.

Another possible solution is extending the regular school day so that every few weeks teachers would accumulate enough time for a work day devoted to professional development. Male Traditional High School and Barret Traditional Middle School have adopted this plan with great success, but they may not be able to continue it. The arrangement conflicts with the district's contractural agreements with bus drivers and cafeteria workers who lose a day's pay when school is not in session. Daeschner says the only way to make this plan work is to adopt it districtwide -- a move he is considering-but it will be difficult to do without resolving the contractual disputes.

A third option, which many school reformers believe is the best way to buy more time on a consistent basis, is for schools to shake up the traditional structure of a school day, using longer blocks of time and creative grouping of students to not only create more professional development time for teachers but smaller class sizes and less paperwork. (For some examples, see "Escaping the prison of time.").

Who decides what training teachers need?

The third major obstacle to broadly improving staff training involves control-who should have the authority for deciding what it should include? The school district? School councils? Each teacher? Daeschner argues that because the state now gives 85 percent of all professional development funds directly to schools, the district has a hard time demanding uniform changes. Kirchner believes that's as it should be.

"Most teachers know what additional help they need," says the JCTA president. "They know the curriculum weaknesses that they need to work on as a faculty. It shouldn't be someone at VanHoose (the school district's central office) telling us what we need to be doing. They should be the resource, not the determiner."

But that position leaves open the possibility that the most apathetic teachers will continue ignoring the training they need. And it makes it difficult for the district to ensure that all schools adopt effective, consistent and long-lasting professional development strategies.

The school district is trying to work around those barriers in several ways. To broadly build the capacity for change, Daeschner said teams of district administrators plan to meet with representatives of every school before the end of the year to discuss ways to meet the training needs of both individual faculties and the school system as a whole.

The district also has increased the number of resource teachers available to assist faculties from 27 to 40 in the past two years. And a district committee is studying the possibility of linking teacher evaluations with their ability to help students meet standards, which could motivate teachers and schools to focus teacher training around the creation of standards-based classrooms.

What high-quality training looks like

"I think Jefferson County offers a lot of professional development, much of it very high caliber," says Kathy Ronay, a distinguished educator from Oldham County who has assisted schools in Hart and Jefferson counties, including Southern and Stuart middle schools. But too few teachers take advantage of what's available, she says.

And when the district offers large-scale professional development, Ronay adds, "for the most part, it's in the summer, and it's on an awareness and orientation level. You know, I've learned four new reading strategies, then I go back to school and I have a choice whether to implement those. Nobody will ever know if I do or not. There's no follow-up."

Lennie Hay, who directs professional development for the district, agrees. "We're good at 'single-shot' training. What we have not been good at is follow-through, sustaining the learning and providing on-going support." But Hay says the district is moving in a new direction.

One promising model, sponsored by the National Science Foundation, trains JCPS teachers at elementary, middle, and high schools to identify and assist minority children who need better preparation for advanced math and science courses. Under the direction of the district's math specialist, Allan Podbelsek, participating teachers meet for a week in August and then every month during the school year. Retired teachers, who have been trained in the new strategies, observe teachers in the classroom and monitor their application of new skills.

All good professional development should have this kind of follow-through, Hay says. But she says the district wants to encourage schools to go a step further and create a continuing discussion about improving teacher practice in every school. This district plans to push that concept in 1998, when it rolls out new performance standards in core subjects at all grade levels.

Planning staff development around new standards

Unlike content standards, which focus on what students should know and be able to do, performance standards set benchmarks for quality-what constitutes excellent work. In January, committees of teachers and administrators expect to begin releasing the performance standards. The expectation is that teachers will begin using standards to design lessons and classroom assessments (see the "Standards Q&A" for more information about standards) and that aiming at high standards will assure higher achievement and better KIRIS scores.

But most JCPS teachers have only the vaguest of ideas about what it means to create a standards-based classroom. To be successful, the shift to standards will require a massive professional development effort "of the kind we have not seen in Jefferson County in many, many years," says Sherry DeMarsh.

During a retreat at the Foxhollow conference center in December, Lennie Hay described the district's long-range strategy to a group of middle school principals and teachers and asked for their feedback.
Although the plan is still being assembled, the general approach will be to have districtwide informational sessions in early spring and then train teams of teachers this summer during four-day intensive workshops focused solely on implementing performance standards in the classroom.

"We don't want the performance standards to be another shelf document," Hay told the Foxhollow audience. "In order to keep that from happening, teachers in each school will have to help each other. We know that the work is different in every classroom, but we also know we have to build a support structure for the whole school. We can't just operate individually anymore."

To help focus the effort, each school team will design an implementation plan during the summer training session. They'll also participate in sessions where they use the performance standards to design lessons and participate in demonstration lessons by master teachers. The district says it will then provide on-going support to the teacher teams as they go back into their schools and begin on-going discussions with their entire faculties.

With 5,600 teachers in the JCPS schools, "the scale of change" can be intimidating, Hay said. "We have a sense of urgency but we know changing practice takes time."

Unless the district and the schools figure out how to buy that time, it's likely to be small change.

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