Easier Tracking, Greater Voice and Choice, and More Transparency in Professional Learning

Success and Savings in Professional Learning at Greece Central Today

Today, professional learning looks drastically different at Greece Central. In recent years, the district has averaged 135 new teachers per year, so, in Marguerite’s words, “We really had to think about doing new teacher induction differently.” Meeting each individual’s needs — plus those of each building and offering mandatory district-wide training — requires an agility that would have been impossible in the past. Now, with Frontline Professional Growth, all new teachers can complete 10 hours of PL upon joining the district, and the program as a whole has gotten easier to manage while providing teachers with choice, flexibility, and real learning opportunities.

Marguerite also found that Frontline Professional Growth is more cost-effective than what Greece Central was doing before. When personnel reductions during the financial crisis of 2008 cut the size of the Professional Learning Department from six people to two, Marguerite says that Frontline enabled them to continue to offer top-notch learning opportunities. “In terms of person power, it helped us to survive, because I don’t know how I would have done that.”

Easier to Manage

Running and managing the district’s professional learning program has become smoother in a number of ways:

• The PL catalog is always available online and remains up to date
• Teachers have more choice to explore what they’re interested in and need to work on
• Gone are the days of paper registration sheets and endless hours spent entering data
• Tuition reimbursements and conference requests — which in the past were requested through paper forms — are automatic, reducing effort and errors

Better Tracking of Completed Learning

Professional learning at Greece Central now includes far more than in-person workshops. With Frontline, the district can track — and give credit for — a much wider array of learning opportunities, including

• Online courses
• Professional learning communities
• Conference attendance
• College courses

And the system can easily track it all. “It definitely is the core of our professional learning system,” Marguerite says. All learning opportunities in the catalog meet New York’s Continuing Teacher & Leader Education (CTLE) standards, so ensuring that all teachers meet their annual CTLE requirements is a snap. Teachers can earn CTLE hours for mentoring, and forms and mentor logs in Frontline collect the necessary state-required information, including action plans, reflection, and feedback.

When teachers exceed their contractually required ten hours of PL, they are paid on an hourly basis, and Frontline makes it easy to track that as well. “We can see how many hours they already have in progress, and then we can code it to the right payment code. Those reports go quarterly to our business office so teachers can be paid out, as well as when it’s a building budget that can be earmarked.”

More Voice and Choice for Teachers

Frontline’s system enables the district to offer its teachers a wide array of ways to learn and topics to explore, each of which is tagged to to the appropriate standard on the New York State United Teachers (NYSUT) rubric, which is based on the Danielson Framework for Teaching. Teachers then explore opportunities in a way that fits into their craft.

• Activities are arranged by:
• Topic area, such as English Language Arts, DE&I, or Leadership
• Activity format, such as book studies or instructor-led learning
• Standards connected to the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA)
• District strategic goals
• Instructor
• Dates

The system also facilitates educator interest in a learning activity that isn’t part of the catalog. For instance, teachers can:

Complete an activity proposal form,

The form collects all the data needed for state reporting and compensation. When a teacher or staff member wants to offer a learning activity that is not part of the catalog, they “Is it a book study? Is it instructor led learning? And that also triggers for me what kind of contract they get. For instructor-led learning, I pay them. For a book study, they get professional learning hours. There is a lot of stuff that helps behind the scenes.”

Pursue their own in-depth learning

“I was able to use Frontline to do some innovative things. For example, we have what is called an independent study,” says Marguerite. Teachers can propose learning they want to engage in, detail how they will learn, the evidence they will provide, and what support they may require for a five-hour learning exercise. They complete a form in Frontline, submit it to their supervisor for approval, then engage in reflection afterward.

Observe another teacher or an administrator

If a teacher wants to observe another teacher, or even an administrator, they can request a “shadow day.” “A shadow day is really one of the most impactful forms of professional learning, whether you’re a new or veteran teacher, to go and observe a teacher in practice,” Marguerite says. “They complete the shadow day form in Frontline, and they have a few questions that they have to answer in terms of who they are going to shadow, the dates, the times, what standard skill, how does it relate to their evaluation? And then we send them a couple of tools that we tied in with Learning Forward, some look-fors on their shadow day.”

Using Frontline has made for a more thoughtful process all around. The automatic proposal and approval process encourages teachers to ask, “Does this course make sense for me, given my role?” And by requiring PL offerings to align to district goals and objectives and New York state standards, instructors and curriculum directors are encouraged to plan more thoroughly. Now, Greece Central can offer more targeted learning than it had in the past.

Quicker Reporting

When it comes time to submit her end-of-year report to the state, all the data Marguerite needs is already in Frontline, and she simply runs a custom report. That data is also useful for internal reporting, because Marguerite has configured the forms to require the information she knows she will need. “If an administrator asks me, ‘Marguerite, can you tell me how much professional learning is for goal commitment number two: attract, develop, and retain a high-quality, culturally responsive workforce?’ And I can pull that.”

More Effective Evaluations and the Learning Loops

Administrators in Greece Central also use Frontline Professional Growth to manage the teacher evaluation process, logging observations in the system. Custom workflows streamline observations for certified and classified staff, and Frontline calculates composite scores needed for New York’s APPR process. Marguerite appreciates how the system automatically populates each person’s professional learning history, tagged to the appropriate standard, which means less data entry for administrators.

The system also recommends tailored learning opportunities to address areas of need identified through the observation process. “We tied it into the Learning Loop where it can recommend professional learning based upon a certain threshold in the rubric,” Marguerite says. This way, she can be confident that the learning staff are engaging with is exactly what each employee needs.

Greater Transparency for Employees

Marguerite sums up the value of the system to employees: “It provides choice and streamlines the process and provides transparency.” When a staff member wants to check in on any of the following (and more), they can check it in the system:

• A request to attend a conference
• A request for tuition reimbursement
• A pending approval to take a college course

Teachers can also see the status of their evaluations. “It is very transparent where things are in the process, even our evaluations. We negotiated so teachers can see the evaluation form in real time. It’s not a hidden thing. As a supervisor, if I am using the evidence collection tool, once I sync that data as a teacher, I can see where it is. I no longer have to wait weeks for the administrator to give it to the secretary to type up to put in the system. You get that feedback in the moment that you need, and people are not sitting and waiting or wondering. I think that is a huge benefit.”

Using the automated workflows, dynamic catalog and robust tracking and reporting in Frontline Professional Growth, Greece Central can continually support educator growth through ongoing, job-embedded professional learning — with minimum hassle and maximum effectiveness.