The small rural district of United Local Schools in northeast Ohio has seen its math scores increase in the eight years it has used Everyday Mathematics® in its elementary school classrooms. In 2015-16, the first school year in which all sixth-grade students had used Everyday Mathematics since kindergarten, those students scored 26.8 percentage points higher […]

Fifteen—that’s how many times Sara Kopp says she treated her 10-year-old daughter for lice in just one school year, according to the Reno Gazette Journal. Frustrated by the expense and inconvenience—and Washoe County School District policies that she says allow lice to spread at school—Kopp began circulating an online petition in the spring of 2017, […]

When Mark MacLean became superintendent of the Merrimack Valley and Andover School Districts in New Hampshire four years ago, he wanted to find an online solution for teacher evaluation that could also link to professional development. After some research with his leadership team, MacLean found TeachPoint, which offers a Professional Development Tracking Solution that also […]

How closely is professional development linked to student achievement? Professionalism expects learning to be in the collective. We should think of our own learning and growth as part of a mutually beneficial ongoing professional development process. A big part of that idea is that we share and become more transparent in our practice as educators. […]

Two years ago, Elizabeth Rincon was seeking to end the last-minute scramble to cull professional development for approximately 125 special education paraprofessionals on days when teachers had preplanned PD. “Principals had to either swiftly get something together for paraprofessionals in terms of PD or they would email me and I would have to quickly plan […]

While innovations typically involve a high degree of novelty and a paradigm shift, tried-and-true best practices often serve as their launch pad and rocket fuel. In designing and selecting professional development opportunities that harness and reflect best practices in education, there are four key elements for a high-quality experience: authenticity, contextual learning, a creative climate, […]

I work with schools to teach brand and marketing strategies to educators. That job didn’t exist a few short years ago. It’s not typical work and neither is school branding, which I characterize as “business as unusual.” Branding is an empowering trend for educators who move out of their typical professional silos into understanding marketing […]

Nevada recently launched an online reporting system for parents and students, joining a handful of other states and districts in efforts to combat bullying. Colorado was first to create an online bullying reporting tool in 2004, five years after the Columbine shooting. Since then, Oregon, Wyoming, Utah and Michigan have passed laws mandating the creation […]