Teacher Inservices: Do Teachers Play When Students Are Away?

By Mariah Cull

Students love having a day off once a month, but most probably think the teachers just catch up on grading and planning on those days. They actually do a lot more with those inservice days.

“Inservices are a professional development day, we discuss the school-wide issues that need to addressed and they help teachers and staff.” I interviewed Mrs. Amy Foote to get some information from someone who was newer to the scene. Inservice days introduce staff to workshops that help them learn about new changes going on in schools, such as the new safety measures and the new online classes that Mr. Fry and Mrs. Brunton are teaching. Mrs. Foote recalls visiting two different workshops at one of the inservices: “There was one workshop that specifically trained us in using Schoology and there was another one that taught the staff how to help kids regulate their emotions.”

There is a school staff leadership team, called the SAIL team, that decides what is to be discussed. If there is something that needs addressing immediately then that is something that will be discussed. SAIL stands for School Administrators Institute for Transformational Leadership team. Not every school district allows the staff to be part of the decision-making process, which makes the SAIL team very unique. The team works together to plan the growth of our staff as professionals by setting measurable goals, setting out to achieve those goals, and reflecting on the process. They are focusing on providing responsive and high impact instructional strategies for our students and building social-emotional skills within our staff and students. Science teacher Matthew Eastlick, one of the members of our SAIL team said, “When we grow and get better, students grow and get better.”

There are two more parts of the inservices that are quite possibly the most important, the SLO and PPG. Student Learning Outcomes (SLO) and Professional Practice Goals (PPG) are the means by which our staff and administration set specific goals for their own practice as educators and document their work as professionals.

All of the inservices have to be planned at the least 6 months ahead of time so that they can be approved by the board, then the information can be sent out to the parents and other people. Inservices are primarily for teacher development, Principal Uppena says. “We try to make them the most beneficial to our staff, so that they can be the best teacher that they possibly can. That’s the goal. There’s a lot of pieces that fall into place with what the staff need to do to develop.”

One of the biggest concerns right now, besides the more common problems like bullying and illnesses, is the safety of the school. When everything is in place, the teachers will be taught how to use the new safety measures.

Inservices are mandatory for all staff. One recent inservice discussed and taught CPR; they also discussed the blood borne pathogens that are in our area to try and prevent them from reaching the school. We all have to be aware and learn about some of these issues.

This year they changed the inservice days from half days for the students to a full day off school. They changed this from the two half days a month we had last year. It is now a lot more efficient for not only the school, but the students and parents as well. The teachers were all polled on this and the entire school calendar was changed to accomodate the decision.

The location of the inservice depends on what is being discussed that day. When they are learning the aspects of Schoology, our new online learning program, they will use the computer lab. Other times they will be in the cafeteria using a projector, in the auditorium or in classrooms. Not only are they in the classrooms for the air conditioning and the seating room, but they are in the classrooms because they want to be able to see the process from a student's perspective. Seeing things from a student’s perspective helps the teachers find new ways to improve in the classroom and make learning a good and fun experience.