Professional Learning – Background Information / Documents
Professional Development Plan
The school calendar reflects the number of professional development days scheduled for staff. In house PD days are developed based on the results from the SCAP surveys. Three days are also allocated during the year for PD provided by the NEBOCES.
- Calendar with PD days 2025 – 2026
- Calendar with PD days 2024 – 2025
- Calendar with PD days 2023 – 2024
Starting in the summer of ’24, the district started offering some of the mandatory preservice trainings online before school starts. If staff completes the mandatory training and suggested training (8 hours) they will receive a comp day.
Learning Communities:
Strategic Priority Two is to Enhance Professional Communication and Collaboration. Each principal works her learning communities differently. In the elementary school, monthly staff meetings are held and regular department and grade level meeting are held. At the JR/SR High School, the principal holds staff meetings on the in house PD days and sends out weekly updates to keep the staff informed with all the information needed for each week. She also holds regular department meetings rotating through departments on Wednesdays during lunch.
- JR/HS Department Meeting Schedule
- JR/HS Weekly Updates
- Elementary Staff Communication
- Athletics and Activity Page
Professional Growth Plans:
As an Innovation School, our administrators use a different evaluation tool. Each staff member uses this tool at the beginning of the school year to self-evaluate and establish professional goals for the school year.
K-3 Read ACT Training
Elementary teachers were required to complete the Read ACT training on the Department of Education’s Web Page.
Resource Allocation:
The district uses SCAP Survey feedback along with monthly in-service feedback to determine district-wide professional development, individual department heads’ professional development, and new teacher development, and then budgets for these needs in April for the following school year. The district schedules three differentiated PD opportunities through our NE BOCES and offers seven additional days of Holyoke In-Service PD throughout the entire school year. In addition to these ten days of PD, the Holyoke School District also offers two additional days in the fall before the school year starts for new hires to provide additional insight, with mentor support for curriculum resources, building-level expectations, processes, and district practices that they will use throughout the school year.
- Next year’s PD offerings Pending
- Calendar with PD days
- Calendar with PD days 25-26
- How funds and other resources are allocated for professional learning
Data Driven:
We regularly survey our staff after PD opportunities, both in and out of the district. We use these survey results to guide the creation of further PD for staff. We also use our SCAP educator survey results to create PD opportunities for the next year. This gives our staff voice and choice in our PD offerings. Then, administration ensures that these align directly with our strategic priorities.
​Evaluated:
The school district is exempt from SB 191 and has been designated as an Innovation School. The flexibility obtained through these waiver was necessary to:
- Provide more time for our principals to refine their evaluation skills and be in the classroom observing and interacting with teachers as they work to individualize instruction so that every student develops the skills they need to succeed.
- Free our educators to focus on our standards, curriculum, and assessment design work, enhancing their ability to meet the educational needs of our diverse student population.
- Allow our classroom teachers to focus their classroom time on instruction and develop innovative approaches to teaching and learning.