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The Neosho R-5 School District was recently presented the 2011 Commissioner’s Award for High Quality Professional Development by the Commissioner of Education, the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, and the Missouri Staff Development Council.
This is the first time the school district has won this award. The award was presented on Monday in Branson, with many of the district’s staff members, administrators and board members present. The Neosho R-5 School District was the only school district in the state of Missouri to receive this award, and it has been a few years since any school district has met the standards in order to receive it.
“It is an award for high quality professional development,” said Alma Stipp, assistant superintendent of curriculum / instruction. “Over a period of five years, instead of sending a few teachers out to get training and then expecting them to come back in and be able to train everybody, we felt like the money was better spent to bring the trainer in, so that more people heard about it and were trained by the trainer. That way, everybody could hear the message the same way.”
In order to receive this award, a school district must meet certain standards. The criteria for determining high quality in professional development are broken down into the following categories: Learning communities, leadership, resources, data-driven, evaluation, research-based, design, learning, collaboration, equity, quality teaching, and family involvement. A certain level of achievement had to be met in each category, and maintained, in order to be recognized.
Another standard that had to be met was that the district must show improvement in student achievement over a five-year period. District officials said accountability for this standard can be seen in the fact that the school district has been accredited with Distinction in Performance for the last four years in a row.
District officials said they recognize the importance of high quality professional development for staff members and that they support efforts to help teachers grow and mature as professional educators. One component of this is the professional development committee, whose members serve as liaisons between the building and central office administration and serve on building school improvement committees to assure that professional development activities support the district Comprehensive School Improvement Plan (CSIP).
The district began focusing on professional development in 2006 because of the need to increase achievement for students as soon as possible. The professional development plan centered around the need to promote an awareness of the effects of poverty on district students, and their achievement levels. The initial training — through the “Ruby Payne aha! Process, A Framework for Understanding Poverty” — provided the information needed to promote a model shift for teachers and staff based upon developing an awareness of the district student population and what the students and their families value.
The Neosho R-5 School District was recently presented the 2011 Commissioner’s Award for High Quality Professional Development by the Commissioner of Education, the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, and the Missouri Staff Development Council.
This is the first time the school district has won this award. The award was presented on Monday in Branson, with many of the district’s staff members, administrators and board members present. The Neosho R-5 School District was the only school district in the state of Missouri to receive this award, and it has been a few years since any school district has met the standards in order to receive it.
“It is an award for high quality professional development,” said Alma Stipp, assistant superintendent of curriculum / instruction. “Over a period of five years, instead of sending a few teachers out to get training and then expecting them to come back in and be able to train everybody, we felt like the money was better spent to bring the trainer in, so that more people heard about it and were trained by the trainer. That way, everybody could hear the message the same way.”
In order to receive this award, a school district must meet certain standards. The criteria for determining high quality in professional development are broken down into the following categories: Learning communities, leadership, resources, data-driven, evaluation, research-based, design, learning, collaboration, equity, quality teaching, and family involvement. A certain level of achievement had to be met in each category, and maintained, in order to be recognized.
Another standard that had to be met was that the district must show improvement in student achievement over a five-year period. District officials said accountability for this standard can be seen in the fact that the school district has been accredited with Distinction in Performance for the last four years in a row.
District officials said they recognize the importance of high quality professional development for staff members and that they support efforts to help teachers grow and mature as professional educators. One component of this is the professional development committee, whose members serve as liaisons between the building and central office administration and serve on building school improvement committees to assure that professional development activities support the district Comprehensive School Improvement Plan (CSIP).
The district began focusing on professional development in 2006 because of the need to increase achievement for students as soon as possible. The professional development plan centered around the need to promote an awareness of the effects of poverty on district students, and their achievement levels. The initial training — through the “Ruby Payne aha! Process, A Framework for Understanding Poverty” — provided the information needed to promote a model shift for teachers and staff based upon developing an awareness of the district student population and what the students and their families value.
The leadership team has continued to support professional development for large groups of staff members through many succeeding professional development activities, which the district provided. Other professional development has been provided in character education, professional learning communities, response to intervention, sheltered instruction observation protocol, and positive behavioral interventions and support to provide support for teachers in acquiring better instructional skills to help Neosho students become educated and productive citizens of good character. The practice of training large groups of staff members has provided the support needed for the sustainability of improvement in the district.
“We feel very honored, because they have not given this specific award in the last two or three years, because they have not had the programs in place where they have had a central focus,” Stipp said.
“No way will this be looked at as being a stopping point for us, or a point where we say ‘good enough,’” said Dr. Richard Page, superintendent. “This is just the next step in continuing our efforts to increase student achievement.”
Stipp said the school district has some people that are very well trained.
“We have some people that are doing excellent things in our school district,” she said. “The P.D. (professional development) group that came down suggested that we start videotaping our own teachers that are doing outstanding teaching activities, to videotape them and show them to some of our own staff and have more peer teacher, where the teachers teach each other. Of course, we have already worked toward that, we have our collaboration on Friday afternoon.
“We have a good foundation and we are ready to move forward with some more things to make sure that we have got the best teaching staff in the area.”
Stipp noted the school district has a great professional development committee and they put in a lot of hard work.
“This project took a lot of writing, it took a lot of studying. We had representatives from the buildings and departments that contributed to the write-up for what was being done in their buildings,” she said. “They wanted this award and they worked for it.”
