Walk away with habits and ideas you can use today to explore "attitude" as the key concept to successful working relationships. Understand the functions of changing environments and expectations in times of change that can positively and negatively affect "attitude." Learn process skills that will contribute to individual and group "attitudes" to make living and working easier and more rewarding. Learn to pick the future as opposed to the past and focus on opportunities rather than problems. Examine personal and organizational vision and norms to create the working/ personal environment you desire. Know when to be cautious and when to focus on concrete and important issues and values. All members of your school will benefit from this training.

Communities of professional learners have been highly effective as a tool to change the culture of a school and to improve student achievement by implementing, after study, the research of best practices.  PLC’s who meeting weekly with an intended purpose and focus have sought continuous improvement and achieved it through shared vision, mission and values, asking the difficult questions, become highly collaborative by “playing to people’s strengths and focused on forward action and results.

Professional Learning Communities take time to develop; stages of development are not always linear but the results are worth the effort.  Schools Judee has worked with see results from collaboration and increased student achievement in year one.  Using data to drive decision making and instructional decisions have resulted in significant achievement gains in schools with challenging student demographics.

Professional Learning Communities are an effective and efficient tool for change.  Your vision of where or who you want to be is the greatest asset you have.  Learn how to make it work for you.

Teachers and administrators are working very hard, but we need to stop and reflect and ask if we are working hard at the right stuff!  The research of best practices will help us to concentrate on what will make a difference to improve student learning and achievement.

In this professional development session:

• Examine your data and let the results guide your work
• Use the credible research of best practices to guide your school improvement work
• Explore your demographics data for trends; use data to support the “reality of what is” and not people’s perceptions
• Focus on specific strategies such as maximizing learning time, checking for student understanding frequently, monitoring student progress, etc.
• Encourage staff dialogue and the use of reflective journals
• Think outside the box and design interventions before, during and after school to meet your students’ demographic needs
• Review and re-teach within 24 hours in a different way then the initial learning
• Celebrate small gains until they make a difference

Schools with extremely challenging demographics have experienced phenomenal success; their successes will be shared as well as the “best practices” that made a difference!

“Always do right; that will gratify some people and astonish the rest”Mark Twain

Learn how in this session!

As we closely examine our current school culture, we may find that our practices and beliefs do not align with the need to increase student achievement. Learn strategies and gather ideas and best practices to examine and structure your school culture to one that is more conducive to continuous improvement for both students and staff!

Examine the instructional leader's role in working smarter to do the hard jobs to include empowering teachers, parent and student leaders in an appropriate way. Walk away with numerous ideas and strategies to change and/ or modify school culture on an "as needs" basis. Positive school culture that is well defined and aligned to school improvement goals is a powerful influence on all segments of your school community. Learn ways to focus on the needs of students in a positive, caring, safe, high impact school culture.

Teachers working together in a continuous seam of teaching and learning have significantly and positively impacted student achievement and test scores. It is the process of identifying the concepts we intentionally teach that has made the difference. The important ingredient…teacher dialogue, concept negotiation, and colleague reflection to impact instructional strategies that has changed classroom practices and instructional design.

Once teachers have clearly identified the concepts they will intentionally teach by grade level, instruction is more focused thorough quality lesson design, use of assessment data to drive instructional decisions and students learn more, faster in a developmentally appropriate learning environment. This process will work for you in closing the achievement gap to ensure that all of your students make adequate yearly progress as defined by NCLB.

There is so much to do…but we must focus our efforts where it can and will make a difference. Quality School Improvement Plans can provide that critical difference! If we use a systemic process that is focused on increasing student achievement to build our School Improvement Plan, we will make "our vision a reality." This process also can by applied to creating School-Wide plans. Focus and collaboration focused on student needs is the key to success!

Student- Teacher- Administrator-Parent Accountability is imperative in creating your School Improvement and/or School-Wide Plan. Our only vision is to increase student achievement…use a planning template, with guided practice, to ensure that you have components in your plan that are systemic and align to make a difference in your school and/or district. Take the mystery out of the process and involve all segments of your school community to build a plan that will positively impact student learning and achievement. Professional development, aligned and focused, can be high impact! Learn strategies to make this a key component. Draft 3-5 goals for school improvement that are aligned and practice strategies for implementation. This step-by-step process can be easily implemented in a "fun" and collaborative way and you will "profit" in multiple ways.
 

As the world changes, we can no longer predict what will happen and what impact we will be able to have. Therefore we need tools and new ways of looking at the world to be able to anticipate and prepare for these changes. One of these tools is a clear and focused vision because the vision of the organization describes the common task for all school members. Learn to define and clarify your goals related to your vision and purpose. Identify decision making processes and levels of decision making related to your vision as you examine roles, responsibilities, tasks, and functions to create your vision. Enhance your leadership skills to maximize time and energy as you focus on implementing your vision. Use your vision as the filter for how you and your staff focus future planning and program design.