School Type: Public	School Setting: Rural
Level: Elementary	School Design: Traditional
Content Presented By:
National Awards Program for Model Professional Development

Summary

The practice: Professional development should be connected to a comprehensive change process focused on improving student learning.

• Students' voluntary and at-home reading grew from 14,000 books in 1994 to 60,000 books.
• Parent involvement grew from sparse to 100% visitation
• 24 community members and parents are involved as teacher helpers compared to 0 in the beginning of the program

When teachers at Ganado Intermediate School began to realize that students' poor performance and parental and community involvement in school was not going to change until they acted, a tidal wave of reform began. Armed with a five-year plan to improve student and adult learning in the school, teachers designed professional development activities that had as their core increasing teachers' knowledge and skill, closing the gap between minority students' performance and that of other students, and increasing parent and community involvement in the schools.

Teachers have extensive and diverse learning opportunities at the school, in the district, and with several partner colleges and universities. In addition, the school has as one of its goals increasing the number of Navajo teachers at the school. With the support of a local college, teacher education courses are available for teaching assistants. Several former teaching assistants are now fully certified and are teaching at the school.

The comprehensive plan kept all staff members focused on their desired results and provided flexibility and opportunities for teachers to pursue their own areas of interest in relationship to the goals.

This site also exemplifies the following practice(s):

• Professional development should involve teachers in the identification of what they need to learn and in the development of the learning experiences in which they will be involved.  
• Professional development should be continuous and on-going, involving follow-up and support for further learning, including support from sources external to the school that can provide necessary resources and new perspectives.  

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This resource is developed and maintained by The Education Alliance at Brown University. Seed funding was provided by the U.S. Department of Education. Send comments to: loom@alliance.brown.edu