Many of the board members  on the District 158 Board of Education were in awe of a new proposal to help teachers improve how they can help their job performance.

Professional Development allows the teacher to have a Data Coach to be able to look and see how many students have struggled, and are currently struggling on that skill. Then the Technical Coach can aid in the technology issues for success.

This leads the way for teachers to tackle what students are struggling on in school in a new way. All because of the Instructional Coaches. 

Now Professional Development works well with the RTI program at Huntley High School because the school can see how many students are struggling and on what certain subject through the Instructional Coaches. Dr. Julia Cloat, director of curriculum & instruction RTI and literacy, notices the connection between Instructional Coaches and teachers. 

“[Professional Development] works well with our reading specialists for RTI and we were looking for how can we support our teachers and that is through Instructional Coaches,” said Cloat.

Teachers also not only can be coached for success by the Instructional Coaches, but can also have training periods through Professional Development to aid in their teaching methods. Last summer, for seven days, teachers could choose from a selection of choices on certain issues that they struggle with as they teach.

Those lessons either consist of lesson preparation, building background, comprehensible input, strategies, interaction, and many more. The teachers could use what they learned from the Inspirational Coaches and bring their ideas back to their classrooms to help their students.

Guaranteed, all students are different learners. However, Professional Development aids the teacher so they can reach out and help every single student that they can.

An example of Professional Development is in our district. According to one elementary school teacher, some students struggle with vocabulary. That information is learned from the Data Coach.

Then the teachers could choose to go to these training days during the summer and or school year to see what they could improve upon and how they can do so. Then that is when the teacher has the one on one time with the student.

However, Professional Development is not going to be around for a couple months, but for years to come. Michelle George, director of curriculum and instruction,  has far goals for Personal Development.

“We have a long term goal as you can see up to 2020,” said George. “Our goal is to get any teacher who is teaching an ELL student to go through this process and have the foundation knowledge.”