Last fall, Southwest Elementary School
in Winston-Salem contacted ERG about a different kind of professional development project. School leaders were determined to be strategic about meeting teachers’ professional development needs even with recent budget cuts. ERG supported Southwest’s goal by doing a Professional Development Needs Assessment:
Components of ERG's Needs Assessment Service
• Free consultation to gather school history and set project goals
• Observations to each classroom
• Qualitative interviews with teachers
• Summary report based on observations and teacher interviews
• Meeting to review the report and make recommendations
After completing the project, ERG talked with Debbie McIntyre, Southwest AP, about how the project worked for the school.
Talk a little about what you hoped to achieve by having ERG conduct a needs assessment at your school.
Our administrative goal was to look for ways to achieve teacher growth. One of our main jobs at Southwest is to be Instructional Coaches who work to grow our teachers and offer staff development that will stretch and grow them. Our staff is well versed in teaching reading and math, but we wanted to focus on how to grow them with regard to balanced literacy--especially the small group piece--we know that is where student growth happens. Our staff has devoted an enormous amount of hours into Common Core training the past two years. Our administrative team felt it was time to focus on the delivery/facilitating of instruction through professional development opportunities.
Why did you choose ERG for this project?
I had attended professional development provided by ERG and felt they were well positioned to help us. I had firsthand experience with the quality of their work and their knowledge of instruction.
How did the project help you develop a vision and plan for your school’s professional development going forward?
The project helped us identify the need for doing work on vertical alignment for ELA and math. We want to look for common threads in concepts, vocabulary, and skills. As a result, we are implementing vertical alignment professional development this semester.
Going forward, we plan to offer more vertical alignment meetings and a menu of professional development options based on teachers’ needs and interests. We will use resources recommended by ERG to offer book studies. Teachers have asked to observe each other along with having our administrative team give informal observations for immediate feedback on teaching reading and math. We are excited to work side by side with our staff in these professional development opportunities.
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