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Olathe School District
Olathe, KS
School Type: Public
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School Setting: Suburban
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Level: K-12
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School Design: Traditional
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Content Presented By:
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National Awards Program for Model Professional Development
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Summary
The practice: Professional development should be connected to a comprehensive change process focused on improving student learning.
- 5-year instead of 1-year action plans
- From sporadic, voluntary, elementary level Professional Development (PD) in 1980s to 100% participation, integrated 5-year action plans
- Master teachers
- Elected individual school leadership teams
- Staff-written current research briefs
- The Teacher Appraisal Process
- Individual Development Plan
- Annual Job Targets
- Technology training lab
- 83% of teachers reported PD helped them implement school improvement
- 65% of teachers implement new math strategies in 1997-1998 compared to 19% in 1994-1995
- The narrative reading gap between lower and higher SES groups was 3% in 1997-1998 compared to 9% in 1994-1995
The Olathe Unified School District in Olathe, Kansas, believes in the importance of professional development to improve student achievement. Evidence shows that their comprehensive planning processes make a difference. The motto "learning to doing" characterizes the core belief about professional development that teachers receive support from the beginning of the learning process through to the application of that new learning. Through a focus on improving teachers' knowledge, skills, and practice, the district has seen significant improvement in student achievement in reading, writing, and mathematics. The planning process requires each school to look closely at data and to develop both a school improvement and staff development plan. These plans must incorporate anticipated outcomes, research-based strategies, necessary resources, documentation of improvement, a monitoring timeline, and identification of professional growth opportunities. The planning process for school improvement and professional development has been in place since the early 1990s and is explained in two resource documents: the Staff Development Handbook and the Organizational Improvement Plan.
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