School Professional Development Analysis

College of Education, Grand Canyon University

EAD-523: Developing Professional Capacity

Hugo Guillen

Week 4

August 23, 2022

Increasing Staff Capacity

For this analysis I interviewed my mentor who designs a large portion of the school PD. With regard

to PD for staff my mentor stated that PD needs to be authentic and driven by the desire to support the school’s

mission to create an environment of rigorous and relevant instruction for students. In regard to PD needing to be

authentic Barnet and Farrah (2021) state that, “Some of it (PD) was fantastic, but too often the one-size-fits-all

presentations we attended failed to meet our—and our colleagues’—needs. At times we were overwhelmed by

new information; at other times we were bored or uninspired. Above all, we were short on time and anxious to

go create and plan. We felt frustrated and stressed, and we weren’t alone.” PD needs to have a clear focus for

students and teachers alike for it to be successful. My mentor noted that PD needs to have a strong foundational

need within the building and that teachers need to see the value in it, or it simply becomes an exercise in futility.

This effective framing of the need for the PD falls upon the admin team.

Principals Roles and Actions

A principal’s role in and action in terms of the development of PD within the secondary education

setting is a difficult task given the wide array of different subject areas and sheer number of staff. Such is the

case at my school site that has nearly 1,500 students and nearly 80 members on staff between teachers a support

staff. Holland notes that principals in her study, All the principals said that they wish they could spend more

time in classrooms helping teachers. While all of the principals acknowledged the time constraints within which

they work, one high school principal also mentioned limitations imposed by his lack of knowledge in some

content areas. Therefore, he questioned his ability to provide useful instructional assistance to teachers in those

content areas.” (Holland, 2009) Because of this difficulty, my mentor mentioned that much of the PD structure

is supported by the use of strong mentors within the building to help foster PD especially with regard to novice

or new teachers.
Teachers Roles

A core philosophy of my mentor is the use of the shared leadership model as much as possible within

the building. In speaking to the importance of shared leadership withing the building, Lambert states that,

“Today's effective principal constructs a shared vision with members of the school community, convenes the

conversations, insists on a student learning focus, evokes and supports leadership in others, models and

participates in collaborative practices, helps pose the questions, and facilitates dialogue that addresses the

confounding issues of practice.” By using a shared leadership model, principals are able to leverage strong

teacher leaders to analyze the needs of their colleague sand to be able to collaborate with all staff to formulate

effective OD opportunities. At my site, most PD is delivered by teacher leaders, and this helps not only to

identify effective PD opportunities but also helps to increase teacher buy-in as they staff sees “one of their own”

instructing them.

Continuous Improvement Plan Alignment

One of the main drivers of PD at my site is the school improvement plan (CIP). This carefully crafted

document is created by the admin team near the end of the previous year based on applicable data that is

collected through a variety of methods. One strong focus of the current CIP is the need to reduce major behavior

incidents and suspensions. Wit that in mind, a strong focus of the PD for the year is focused on the

implementation of the districts Restorative Justice model in schools. The PD sessions that have been planned

for integrate this focus through out the year.

Research-Based Instruction

As noted by the National Education Policy Center, “research shows that restorative justice programs

have helped reduce exclusionary discipline and narrow the glaring racial disparities in how discipline is meted

out in schools.” (Walker, 2020) When analyzing the schools current PD emphasis we see that Restorative

Justice has plenty of research showing its effectiveness. The school has avoided using a top-down that, “that
downplay collaborative decision-making among all stakeholders, teachers, and other school staff

implementation” (Walker, 2020) and instead has adopted a bottom-up approach that encourages staff

discussions and involvement in the implementation process.

Evaluating PD Program

When I personally try to objectively evaluate my sites PD program, I believe while it does have some

great strengths it does have some areas for improvement. The school that I work at it is new school that was

able to essential hand pick its staff when it opened. It was a highly desirable site that had hundred of applicants.

The admin team was able to select incredibly talented and experienced teachers. This is a great luxury as many

if the teachers are up to date with many of the best practices. The school also has a strong shared leadership

model that revolves around the PLC model to effectively address many of the PD initiatives. But it also feels

that the school moving forward would need to better articulate the Cip withal staff and involve them in the

development of the CIP. If staff was more heavily integrated with the CIP a more authentic understanding of the

vision and mission for the CIP, the schools PD could be articulated to staff in a more effective manner.
 References

Farah, K., & Barnett, R. (2021, August 12). Teachers need more relevant PD options.

Edutopia. Retrieved August 24, 2022, from https://www.edutopia.org/article/teachers-need-

more-relevant-pd-options

Lambert, L. (2002, May 1). A Framework for Shared Leadership. ASCD. Retrieved August 24,

2022, from https://www.ascd.org/el/articles/a-framework-for-shared-leadership

Walker, T. (2020, January 30). Restorative Practices in Schools Work ... but They Can Work

Better. NEA. Retrieved August 24, 2022, from

https://www.nea.org/advocating-for-change/new-from-nea/restorative-practices-schools-

work-they-can-work-better#:~:text=According%20to%20the%20NEPC%20brief,school

%20climate%20and%20student%20development.