In the Vestal Central School district, in the heart of upstate New York, educators have created a spirit of “kaizen,” a Japanese word meaning the relentless quest for continual improvement and higher-quality performance. Teachers, students, and administrators are committed to the district’s vision of continual learning. The culture of kaizen has created leadership among teachers in an environment in which adults are encouraged and supported to take risks in a collaborative, reflective manner. The evidence shows up in teachers’ practice and student learning every day.

• A middle school reading teacher becomes a master at using the Socratic Seminar and makes a videotape that can be used in district training, as well as becoming a building resource for content teachers experimenting with and implementing Socratic Seminars.
• An 8th-grade math teacher, highly respected by peers for her use of cooperative learning with her students, opens her classroom to 15 new secondary teachers to observe the technique in practice after they have learned about it in training. The master teacher then has released time to debrief the lesson and answer observers’ questions. After this experience, the district extends this learning lab model to new elementary teachers to include observations of a master teacher at the primary level conducting guided reading groups in a balanced literacy lesson.
• An art teacher enthusiastically agrees to help colleagues during a science journaling workshop, developed as a result of implementing a new K-5 science curriculum. Teachers admit they need better sketching techniques. Her expertise in sketching helps teachers learn to sketch better and to teach their students how to sketch.
• Three 2nd-grade teachers volunteer to share literacy centers, student exemplars, and classroom materials they developed as a result of implementing a new curriculum.

Vestal is a high-performing district in which students at all levels meet and surpass state and national standards. Continuous growth in student achievement is due in part to a well-defined professional development program for all staff. A key element in the program is commitment at every level. The board of education annually earmarks about $1.5 million, about 3% of the district’s budget, for professional development. In addition to staffing, the money pays for substitutes so teachers have released time to develop or participate in workshops, action research, building-level initiatives, and conferences. On any given day, 20 substitutes are reserved districtwide to allow teachers to participate in professional development activities. Teachers commit to and are paid for summer and after-school work, although most work is done during the school day.

Vestal’s teachers continue to learn and to refine their practice, enabling them to better support student learning. The district has created a wide reaching yet focused professional development program by articulating the vision of kaizen, identifying student needs, creating avenues for addressing them, and developing teacher leadership. This begins with the recruitment and hiring process. From the first interview conducted collaboratively by teachers and administrators, teacher candidates hear about the district’s vision, where professional development, lifelong learning, and continuous improvement are the norm. Once a teacher is hired, the importance of modeling core beliefs is clearly communicated through the initial orientation, a three-year mentoring and induction program, and professional development activities.

IDENTIFYING NEEDS

The process of continual improvement through professional learning begins with teachers taking the lead to identify student needs.

Teachers meet in their departments, teams, or grade-level groups to review and analyze the New York State NCLB-required student assessments in 3rd- through 8th-grade math, language arts, science, and social studies. In addition, high school teachers score and review tests inhouse in the four major disciplines, available for immediate feedback. They are able to compare data with other districts in the region through a shared database and by comparing state reports. As teachers analyze the data and determine trends, they focus on what is successful and areas for improvement.

The teacher teams discuss how to address focus areas. They may decide to review curricula, instructional methods, common language and vocabulary, and test-taking skills. Throughout the school year, the groups continue to spend professional learning time monitoring their progress in these focus areas.

For example, one group examining 5th-grade social studies test results found that students were not synthesizing the information from the primary source documents but were restating and listing information. The teachers then researched and developed a writing workshop to help colleagues across the district better teach these skills. Student responses the following year clearly indicated that students improved in their ability to synthesize information from multiple primary documents in their essays focusing on a historical context or theme.

Team actions that can affect the district as a whole are coordinated through a districtwide professional development committee, comprising two full-time teacher mentors, a K-12 literacy specialist, an instructional technology teacher, four district-level administrators, several building principals, and the assistant superintendent for instruction. This group meets one half-day bimonthly to discuss needs. Building-level planning teams, curriculum teams, content area teams, administrative, and child study teams make recommendations for professional learning needs after reviewing data.

The districtwide team reviews the recommendations, with subcommittees looking at current research and at successful programs that address the need, where they exist. If the recommendation aligns with district’s philosophy, the committee prioritizes the initiative based on districtwide financial and personnel implications. Committee members then identify teachers for initial training using specific criteria from the district’s professional professional development plan. This includes a teacher completing core offerings, discussing his or her interest with administrators, and writing a letter of interest about his or her beliefs about staff development and experiences as a teacher leader.

For example, after the administrative team observed teachers and students in classrooms struggling with posing and answering higher-level questions that engage and challenge students, team members recommended a professional learning focus in this area. The professional development team researched best practices in questioning, identified a program from Appalachian Educational Lab that addressed the needs, and sent a core group of interested teachers to learn more. These teachers then conducted action research for a year in their classrooms. The initiative evolved into a districtwide, six-day training that has increased both teachers’ and students’ questioning skills. A classroom visitor can hear teachers probing, cueing, and prompting students, holding them accountable for higher levels of thinking. Students also can be heard questioning peers to extend the responses of classmates, taking responsibility for their own learning.

Although this example initially used outside expertise, teacher leadership within the district involves a cadre of two dozen teacher trainers who regularly are provided released time to plan and prepare professional development sessions for groups of five to 50 colleagues. Each of the two dozen teacher trainers specializes in one or two topics. Since trainers are peers, relationships are more open and honest.

In sessions, trainers model best practices of instruction through strategies such as cooperative learning, reflecting in journals, chunking and scaffolding the content, and using processing activities where participants are active, engaged learners. Facilitators form learning groups of teachers from different grade levels, buildings, and departments to build shared perspectives and community across the district.

These opportunities are multisession released time workshops throughout the school year and into the summer. Initial workshops are full days of training followed by half-days of sharing sessions, which refine and extend the learning.

The sessions take place in a specially designed staff development room. The professional development team designed the adult classroom, about the size of three classrooms, which contains versatile table groupings, a sofa area, a technology presentation station, a wall of leadership and learning quotes, and a refreshment area.

Between each session of a specific offering, teachers are expected to conduct action research on the topic with their students. During the course of the action research, members of the professional development team and the teachers meet monthly to learn from their successes and challenges. Follow-up sessions provide multiple opportunities for teachers to share and analyze student work.

CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT

At Vestal, educators strive to maintain the kind of district where children and adults thrive. In the spirit of kaizen, teachers continue to evaluate the effectiveness of the district’s professional development efforts through feedback, individual evaluations, student learning and state test scores, teacher participation rates, and a staff survey. Leaders continue to validate and affirm teachers’ extensive professional commitment to leadership in the professional development program, in buildings and in classrooms, and to celebrate their camaraderie and collaboration.

When teachers are given time, resources, and opportunities to extend their own learning, the result is a district that can continue to perform at ever-higher levels.