WOODBURY — When students hear “professional development day,” most are simply excited to enjoy a long weekend. This was the case March 21 when Nonnewaug students enjoyed a Friday off while staff dedicated the day to professional development.
While students might not know what goes on behind the scenes, a lot of thought goes into these PD days in order to improve the school. Nonnewaug principal Mykal Kuslis says the agenda for PD days is tailored to the school’s needs at each checkpoint during the year.
“Every [PD] day is a little bit different. … A lot of the ones earlier in the year are about setting up, prepping classrooms, and getting us ready to go,” Kuslis says. “We also have some vertical alignment meetings in May where every type of teacher in the district meets and prepares for finals.”
In terms of how last Friday looked, administration tried to balance teachers’ needs and priorities with district requirements.
“There’s always gonna be those mandatory trainings and things that you have to check off,” Kuslis says. “You always have to find that balance in PD days. … We try to give people opportunities to hone their skills around our school’s goals, which are currently reading, writing, math, and standardized tests.”
Teachers keep these goals in mind when they walk away from PD meetings. For example, AP Language and Composition teacher Ben Guerette implements what he learns with the objective of improving his students’ standardized testing abilities.
“The most recent [PD day] covered English SAT questions. My plan is to use a lot of that information,” Guerette says.
Sometimes, teachers even learn about unique tools they can incorporate into their classrooms.
“We’ve been highly encouraged to use ChatGPT to write test questions, and that’s been my major learning curve focus this year,” AP Chemistry teacher Melissa Hodges says. “I’m trying to get ChatGPT to write NGSS-style questions to use on my tests.”
While teachers view PD days as generally insightful and beneficial, there are certain PD formats that are not always useful to them.
“Sometimes we have to do training that feels repetitive, but it’s because the state requires us to do these trainings,” Guerette acknowledges. “It’s out of the school’s hands.”
Along with the mandatory training, the school also brings in presenters to speak to the teachers. Some believe that whether or not these presenters will be helpful is a gamble, because teachers never know what they are going to get.
“[The science teachers] had Gizmo training at the beginning of the year, and it was stuff we already knew, so most of us just sat there. The second time around, someone else came and showed us things we didn’t know Gizmos could do,” Hodges shares. “It really depends on the presenter and if they’ll take our feedback and treat us like professionals, or if they just read off a script.”
Despite this, faculty appreciates the receptiveness of the central office. Teachers feel that the feedback they give on every post-session survey is taken seriously.
“I’d rather give [teachers] that freedom than make them feel like they’re not professionals and hammer them down,” Kuslis says.
The most effective professional development tool, according to teachers, seems to be collaboration with one another.
“I always like working with my department, because it’s not theoretical or abstract. It’s real, tangible things we can plan out together,” Guerette says. “We do things like change the curriculum or share notes, and more time doing that is always better.”
“We’ve also had sessions where we just sit with other departments and learn things from each other,” Hodges adds. “On Friday, I was with mostly math and English teachers near the beginning of the day. It’s cool that I can just learn things from colleagues for free.”
Kuslis agrees, believing that this collaboration helps to improve not only student outcomes, but the school climate and culture as a whole.
“Engaging with each other and sharing strategies are the most impactful types of PD,” Kuslis says. “I think, when it’s used well, it can be really effective.”
