This office is responsible for assisting the continuous professional growth of all school district employees through the following programs:

• Professional development opportunities for all District employees - frontline.isd271.org (select Professional Growth)
• Professional Development Advisory Committee and Building Allocations
• New Teacher Induction
• Mentor Advisory Board
• District Instructional Mentors, Secondary Content Mentors, Elementary Curriculum Mentors
• New & Veteran Teacher Mentoring
• Federal Title Funds
• Student Teacher Placements

National Staff Development Council Definition: Comprehensive, sustained, and intensive approach to improving teachers' and principals' effectiveness in raising student achievement.

Fosters collective responsibility for improved student performance:

• Aligned with state and district standards for student achievement,
• Conducted among educators at the school and facilitated by well-prepared school principals and/or school-based professional development coaches, mentors, master teachers, or other teacher leaders,
• Primarily occurs several times per week among established teams of teachers, principals, and/or school-based professional development coaches, mentors, master teachers, or other teacher leaders,
• Primarily occurs several times per week among established teams of teachers, principals and other instructional staff members in a continuous cycle of improvement,
• Evaluates student, teacher, and school learning needs through a thorough review of data on teacher and student performance,
• Defines a clear set of educator learning goals based on the rigorous analysis of the data,
• Achieves the educator learning goals identified above by implementing coherent, sustained, and evidenced-base learning strategies, such as lesson study and the development of formative assessments, that improve instructional effectiveness and student achievement, and
• Informs ongoing improvements in teaching and student learning.

The process outlined above may be supported by activities such as courses, workshops, institutes, networks, and conferences that:

1. address the learning goals and objectives established for professional development by educators at the school level and
2. advance ongoing school-based professional development.