We are bound by state licensing requirements to complete 12 hours of approved continuing ed and 3 hours of health and safety every year. Unfortunately, Louisiana is woefully behind in offering variety in training opportunities for several reasons (including a resistance to online training beyond their self-produced overviews of Licensing standards and how-to's about the use of Teaching Strategies Gold). For many years, our main local training hub only offered a series of 5 very basic child development overview classes because that was the extent of the block grant that they received, so if you already came to the table with training or experience or once you had completed the series, it became a revolving door of repetition in order to get classes that carried the required approval. There are now some additional classes offered by this main body, and the number of "Pathways certified" trainers has increased, but the onus still falls to the individual centers to arrange much of their own training, particularly if they are not federally funded (many classes, including CDA prep, are available for free to federally funded centers, but are not open to non-funded centers, even those who are willing to pay for the training).
All of that to say... we assure that our teachers receive the required 15 hours of training at our cost, but we also try to arrange additional opportunities for guest speakers, more practical/hands-on training forums, conference attendance, and classroom visits with other schools to facilitate a variety of professional development. We are part of a larger school and our teachers are salaried rather than hourly, so the expectation is that completing these hours is a part of their contract, thus we pay for the training, but the teachers are not paid additionally for their time.
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Holly Dalferes
Director
George Cottage at St Martin's Episcopal School
Metairie LA
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Original Message:
Sent: 02-14-2019 12:41 PM
From: Sara Fox
Subject: Professional Development
Hi everyone!
We don't currently implement required professional development hours for our staff, but we are ready to start!
Where is a good place to start to make this a requirement? How many hours are appropriate per year? Or, how many events per year? Since we're just starting out we don't want it to seem too daunting- although it really should just be exciting as it's a time to learn and grow!
Also, I know budgeting is different for every school, but what do you guys do? Do you pay for the event they attend? Do the teachers pay? IS there a limit on how much the school pays for? Do you pay for the hours they are there? Or do you pay for both?
We're just interested in what other schools do. Any advice appreciated :)
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Sara Fox
Assistant Director
CrossRoads Children's Center
Simi Valley CA
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