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EVOLVING GOALS AT SHALLOWFORD FALLS ELEMENTARY

In 1990, when Shallowford Falls Elementary School was about to open its doors for the first time, the staff’s single most important goal was to learn each other’s names. Eight years later, when the school was recognized for having one of the most effective staff development programs in the country, staff members had learned a lot more than how to greet each other. But in that first overnight staff retreat, which has become a school tradition, they started with names and team building. They had to.

The focus for professional development in those first years came from the administration and reflected what the principal had told teachers when she hired them: "We will work as a team." Because this statement had relevance for school governance, not just staff attitudes, early professional development also took teachers through training in site-based management and decisionmaking.

Once Georgia instituted its Pay for Performance program, the principal asked teachers to consider taking part in it. That program’s model of carefully documenting gains in student learning was one that resonated at Shallowford Falls. Aligning professional development with a fine-grained analysis of students’ standardized test scores, within the framework of county goals and state standards, has become one of the school hallmarks.

 

 

 

Each year, the Building Leadership Team, which has representatives from each grade level, special education, specialist teachers, paraprofessionals, and other support staff, develops the School Improvement Plan. This team collects student data, talks with people whom they represent, and drafts a School Improvement Plan for consideration by the entire staff. Before the plan is voted on, everyone has seen it and given input several times. It is everyone’s plan and everyone’s responsibility.

One year, for example, they voted to embark on a three-year effort that would take the whole staff through the Frameworks literacy program – working in heterogeneous groups. "It was interesting for people to see how reading evolved across the grades and how to provide kids with consistency and continuity," one teacher recalls.

Literacy has continued to be a focus in subsequent years, along with Talents Unlimited, a program to improve students’ critical and creative thinking skills in content areas. More recently, technology has become an additional focus, again linked to student learning goals.

A teacher who was a charter member of the Shallowford Falls faculty sums up how the school’s professional development goals have changed over the years: "Our first school goals dealt with bonding and being a team. Nothing was very specific or academic. But we’ve evolved into very specific academic goals. Each year we grow in our ability to set goals."

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