Bringing the Vision to Life: Educator Support and Development

At the Eighth Annual Vision Coalition Conference on Education, six dedicated action groups (corresponding to the Six Core Areas found in Student Success 2025) worked together to develop a list of priorities for the next six to 18 months.

The Educator Support and Development action group was led by Lamont Browne, executive director of EastSide Charter School, and Family Foundations Academy; Susan Bunting, superintendent of the Indian River School District; Frederika Jenner, president of the Delaware State Education Association; Diane Albanese, a literary specialist for the Cape Henlopen School District; Dusty Blakey, superintendent of the Colonial School District; and Brad Jupp, senior program adviser for the U.S. Department of Education.

The action group discussed the recommendations of Student Success 2025, identified progress underway, developed and discussed action steps for successful implementation, and identified work that can be done in the next six to 18 months to make the recommendations a reality.

Here are the six to 18-month Recommended Action Steps for the Educator Support and Development action group:

Empower Leadership

• Develop stronger distributed leadership, formalize a career path for teachers and train for differentiated roles
• Establish better programming for sitting principals

Improve Initial Educator Training

• Improve current induction programs—push-in programs, special schedules for teachers, differentiated mentoring
• Early hiring
• Recruit diverse populations earlier, collaborate with districts and programs; build interest in teaching earlier
• Build pipeline for early childhood education teachers

Strengthen Professional Learning

• Use data effectively on professional development (PD)
• Listen to educators about what they want/need
• Ensure PD is reflective of evidence of student learning
• Design new infrastructure for PD
• Replicate and scale PD that is working NOW
• Embed PD in the work year
• Develop personalized learning plans for each teacher
• Consider re-instituting statewide professional learning days

Build a Strong Policy Framework

• Alternate career pathways—need to happen
• Empower more parents and community folks to advocate for our students in our most-high need schools
• Always engage educators in the conversation about policy
• Leverage opportunities for alternate evaluation more broadly
• Build upon the CAECC committee on compensation
• Promote the report on teacher equity

For a full recap of the conference, click here. Check out all the photos and collaborative work from the Educator Support and Development action group on our Facebook gallery.

To find a few ways to get involved in this particular issue, click here.