Professional Development

The Professional Development Department is committed to coordinating efforts to provide daily opportunities for training and support for our SCSD Staff that would help them to maintain continuity in communication and learning for our SCSD Students & Families during the Covid19 Pandemic & beyond. The following is a summary report of that work for the past calendar month.

The following professional learning offerings were available to staff:

• Content Area PD by Grade Level
• CTE District PD
• Encounters with the N-word
  
• Fuse Face to Face
• Lead Teacher Planning
• Microsoft Teams Basics
• NWEA Basics
  
• Second Step SEL

Positive Feedback Quotes - October - November 2021

• The presenters did a fabulous job. This PD should be two sessions
• Hearing from experienced teachers about what works
• Time to finish goals
• Getting the opportunity to draw conclusions from student data and setting goals was awesome
• The constant support from my coach! Always amazing information and content
• I like that we are all in the same content area so we can help each other
• I very much appreciated the information and training from NWEA
• I liked that I was able to follow along during the meeting to view the data from my students
• This session was very beneficial for navigating the website and understanding the scores, as well as how I can implement that data into my instruction
• Honestly this was a great start allowing us to see/hear firsthand from a video and then collaborate with colleagues; the comfort level was perfect, and it allowed us to talk to each other without discomfort
• I will use what I learned from this session to increase student engagement through collecting data about classroom climate
• I felt that this professional development was great. It was a perfect balance of information and discussion and collaboration
• The facilitator was absolutely wonderful and supportive to her staff
• There is nothing I would change about this PD, it was just what we needed

Constructive Feedback Quotes - October - November 2021

• Strike a better balance between time for presentation and questions
• This session would have been most beneficial if I attended it after my students have completed some work in DreamBox
• Be more specific on how to implement each lesson, with suggestions
• Provide materials for staff who do not have the materials
• Provide concrete ideas to make it fun and engaging in upper elementary
• I am a DL teacher, and it is necessary that the lessons and/or resources are in that language as well
• We need more time for interaction with materials and concepts taught, preferably not before school starts
• I am almost halfway done with the unit we broke down and I didn't see other participation in the Canvas course for it to be helpful
• I think actual discussion versus online course would have been better
• It would have been more helpful if I could have spoken about what I have seen so far in the lessons and others could have shared their insight as well

Each month we will be highlighting the Disciplinary Literacy Coach and Lead Teachers in one or more buildings doing amazing things in the District. The spotlight schools for October are:

Seymour Dual Language Academy and Nottingham High School

Disciplinary Literacy Coach

Professional Superpower: Flexibility & empathy

Most rewarding part of the job: The most rewarding work is building relationships with students and staff throughout the entire building and working together as we grow.

Positive impact my work has on staff and students: I am hoping the work I do empowers teachers and students to enjoy learning and trying new things, even when it puts them out of their comfort zone.

Something special about my school community: It is special seeing the way Seymour leverages the power of being bilingual. We are working hard to create PD and coaching supports that are personalized, just like we do with personalizing learning for our students.

4th Grade & PL Lead Teacher

Professional Superpower: Building Relationships

Most rewarding part of the job: The most rewarding thing for me will always be working with kids and watching them grow and make progress each year. There is nothing better than watching a student meet a goal, whether that goal be social, emotional, or academic.

Positive impact my work has on staff and students: As a lead teacher I think the most important part of the role is being an additional support person for teachers to ask for help and being able to use our experience to provide guidance. It is very important for all teachers to feel they can reach out and ask for help because it truly takes a community to meet our students' needs.

Something special about my school community: The most special aspect of Seymour's community is it has always felt like a family at Seymour. The students are all of our students and we work hard together to help each child succeed.

5th Grade Science Lead Teacher

Professional Superpower: Team Player

Most rewarding part of the job: Work with my partner to better serve our students. I also coach new teachers in 3rd and 4th sharing best practices.

Positive impact my work has on staff and students: When I share best practices, teachers might choose to use my ideas or adjust them to better fit their needs. This influences teachers and students alike.

Something special about my school community: Our dual language program is unique and provides our Hispanic students to continue to acquire their home language. Spanish teachers usually help each other and that is a nice community to belong to. This year I welcomed a partner, Ms. Macko, the English teacher, and working with her has been great.

Kindergarten Lead Teacher

Professional Superpower: Reading minds

Most rewarding part of the job: The most rewarding work I do is giving children the skills and confidence to go out to the world and succeed bilingually.

Positive impact my work has on staff and students: Each day is a chance to work with young minds and teach new things to staff and students.

Something special about my school community: Something special about my school community is the diverse cultural perspectives that inspire creativity and drive innovation.

Quantitative Reasoning Lead Teacher

Professional Superpower: Positivity

Most rewarding part of the job: Seeing and hearing my students use what they learn in my small groups and use it in their own classrooms!

Positive impact my work has on staff and students: It makes my students feel confident in their math skills and be able to apply them in any situation. While I also get to collaborate with other teachers on their math lessons and help them with any math questions, materials, assessments etc.

Something special about my school community: That they will do anything to help one another!

Disciplinary Literacy Coach

Professional Superpower: Persuasiveness and positivity

Most rewarding part of the job: The most rewarding work for me are the relationships I have built with the teachers and staff at Nottingham. They are an extremely talented group of educators that are always willing and ready to take on something new. That willingness is what makes coming to work so rewarding for me!

Positive impact my work has on staff and students: Again, the work that I do could not be possible without the amazing teaching staff at Nottingham. This staff has gone above and beyond to support student success, especially with our instructional priorities of CER, Tier 2, and Academic vocabulary. On any given day, you will find students engaging in CER writing tasks in places you would least expect, like Art, World Language, and PE. We have also worked hard to develop a cohesive list of academic words to be taught school-wide to ensure students are exposed as much as possible. We strive to prepare our students to be career, college, and civic-ready while building personal student relationships along the way.

Something special about my school community: The diversity within the student population at Nottingham High School really makes us a special place to come to school everyday. Our classes are filled with students from Thailand, Burma, Peru, Kenya, Syria, China, Mexico, Somalia (to name a few). The various cultures are embraced and respected, while also providing opportunities for our school community to learn first-hand about specific cultural experiences. We are very fortunate to have these students in front of us everyday and to learn from them.

ENL Lead Teacher

Professional Superpower: Leading with Empathy

Most rewarding part of the job: At Nottingham, we value multilingualism as an “asset” instead of a “deficit.” With that said, sharing our students cultures, in addition to best practices for MLL students is what I find to be the most rewarding about working as a Lead Teacher this year.

Positive impact my work has on staff and students: In this role, I am able to lead efforts to help students connect with the community and support the building in strengthening the home-school connection. These connections work hand in hand to positively impact staff and students.

Something special about my school community: The Nottingham community comes together in amazing ways to support each other both in and outside of school. We are a true definition of community, especially when we come together for fundraisers, sporting events, performing arts, and more. It isn’t always what happens during the school day, but also how we work together outside of that day that makes our school community special.

ELA Lead Teacher

Professional Superpower: Team player

Most rewarding part of the job: I enjoy collaborating with other teachers. It is so refreshing to see all of the great work that is happening in other classrooms in our building.

Positive impact my work has on staff and students: It is a hard time to be a teacher, there are so many obstacles . It is so beneficial to have somebody to bounce ideas off of and encourage you to try new things. This makes for a better learning environment.

Something special about my school community: The close bonds that have formed throughout our building.

Mathematics Lead Teacher

Information pending

Social Studies Lead Teacher

Information pending

Fuse Syracuse (SyraFuse) strives to implement and scale personalized and blended learning across the Syracuse City School District by creating and training teacher leaders as change agents. The Fuse Syracuse initiative recruits a group of educators called Fuse Fellows for a 1-year fellowship. Fellows will be trained on personalized learning models and best practices, blended learning tools and strategies, coached on classroom implementation, and supported to establish their own “Lighthouse Classroom” to serve as a model of personalized and blended instruction in their building and district.

Fuse Fellows are passionate, curious innovators in their schools who model a growth mindset, and are open to trying new things and taking their practice to the next level. They are natural change agents for their schools, and welcome the opportunity to advance the field through their own leadership and instructional innovation. We are now working with cohort 6 of the fellowship!

Special Education Teacher & SyraFuse Cohort 6 Fellow

Professional Superpower: Building relationships, empathy

Most rewarding part of the job: When a student trusts me enough to open up- this generally makes our "academic" relationship stronger too!

Positive impact my work has on staff and students: My energy in the classroom and love for education positively impacts both peers & students

Something special about my school community: Many of us have close bonds as colleagues/peers as well as having close relationships with our students.

Special Education Teacher & SyraFuse Cohort 6 Fellow

Professional Superpower: Building relationships

Most rewarding part of the job: Getting to work with amazing young people!

Positive impact my work has on staff and students: I love building relationships with kids which allows me to push them to succeed in all of their classes.

Something special about my school community: Nottingham teachers care about their students and work hard to help them grow beyond strictly academic tasks.

ENL and ELA Teacher & SyraFuse Cohort 6 Fellow

Professional Superpower: Communication and Compassion

Most rewarding part of the job: The most rewarding work is building relationships with students. By learning about them I am able to communicate in new ways.

Positive impact my work has on staff and students: While continuing to improve on myself and my teaching I am able to help students grow and become independent learners. When working with my colleagues and co-teachers we are able to build a safe space for students to develop necessary skills in life and in school.

Something special about my school community: Nottingham's community is passionate and driven. We work hard to inspire students and work even harder to motivate and inspire each other.

The Impact Team uses a Dialogical Coaching model. This model of coaching balances advocacy with inquiry to foster improvement. Both the coach and teachers are experts and learners. The dialogical coach uses both powerful questions and shares strategies within the Impact Cycle to help the teacher reach a personally set goal based on the classroom’s current reality. The metaphor is the coach and teacher as equal partners. This confidential partnership is entirely focused on making it easier for teachers to meet the needs of their students.

Impact Coach Office Hours: Need a bit of extra help to think through a plan for instruction? Seeking support with a digital tool? Sign up for a 20 minute PL support session with an Impact Coach: Monday-Thursday 8AM-5PM and Friday 8AM-3PM. By the time your session ends, you will have a plan and/or a completed task!

“Having a coach that is non-evaluative allows the process to be lower-stakes. That is, there is room to breathe, think, problem solve, and less pressure to know all the answers or have the perfect classroom.”

“I want my classroom to be a lighthouse. Having impact coaches visiting and modeling is akin to a runner who wants to improve their performance engaging with a coach.”

“One of my favorite parts of the coaching cycle with my impact coach has been the modeling. My students loved having a “guest teacher,” and seeing how another educator approaches the same objective and students gave me insights into how I may pivot instructionally.”

"I feel that my coach this cycle has been extremely supportive and understanding. She has offered encouragement and ideas throughout my experience."

"I have been working an Impact Coach for a couple months now and my experience with her has been downright amazing. She not only assists me in setting my own goals for myself, but she is pushing me to help my students grow as independent learners in the classroom. The changes that my classroom has seen in just a short amount of time has not just brightened minds in my room, but I even have students enjoying learning. Impact cycles are such a great way for teachers to grow with their students and their classrooms. If anyone has a chance to go through an impact cycle, I definitely recommend this experience, you never know what you can learn about yourself or your students."

“Working with an Impact Coach during our first Fuse Impact Cycle was a great experience. She had great advice for my classroom and was so supportive and helpful during the implementation of any new routines. I learned a great deal from her, in a short amount of time.”

• 2021-22 Volume #1

Director of Professional Development
Syracuse City School District

Email: mtezuka@scsd.us
Website: http://www.syracusecityschools.com/districtpage.cfm?pageid=585
Location: 1005 West Fayette Street, Syracuse, New York 13204, USA
Phone: (315) 435-6358
Twitter: @SCSDPL