Smart Use of Time and Money Enhances Staff Development

By Joan Richardson

Journal of Staff Development, Winter 1997 (Vol. 18., No. 1)

Although Jane Ellsworth will spend five hours with her students today, her work day will include far more than just the time she spends with her class. There will be school committee meetings, parent conferences, report writing, and planning time for her classes.

At 10:05 a.m. every school day, Ellsworth (a fictional, composite teacher) joins four other teachers from her elementary school in a daily planning meeting. The 123 students they oversee each day are either in music, art, or gym classes during this hour.

Her school is piloting a new mathematics curriculum and this team of teachers is working together closely to implement it in the third grade. During the summer, all five teachers attended a weeklong summer training session to learn about this new math program. Now, they are coordinating lesson plans and assessments to learn which techniques are most effective with different students. Already, they are thinking ahead to how they will train other teachers in their district in what they are learning.

Over her lunch hour today, Ellsworth will meet with a mother who's concerned that the new math program isn't meeting her son's needs. Ellsworth will patiently demonstrate several lessons for the mother to help her understand the new curriculum.

After school, the teacher agrees to spend an hour with the school improvement team to answer their questions about the math program. At 5 p.m., she joins a districtwide math curriculum committee meeting that's already underway at the high school.

Was any of this staff development? Was all of it staff development? Does the teacher recognize that? Does her principal? Does her community?

The usual description of a teacher's day paints a bleak picture of worn-out, bedraggled adults spending their precious free moments coping with copying machines and standing on line to use the office telephone. But, in fact, many teachers already devote significant amounts of time to work that simply hasn't yet been acknowledged as professional development.

In Ellsworth's case, her planning time is a kind of staff development. Explaining the math curriculum to a student's parent clearly is an important part of bringing parents into the picture by helping them understand what their children are learning. Participating in a school improvement team and sitting on a district committee expands the definition even further to include her contributions to the broader school and district community.

The changing ideas about staff development means districts must begin to calculate the time and money being spent to support staff development. Accounting for that time and money also has the added advantage of focusing districts on what they call professional development.

In 1995, the National Staff Development Council Board of Trustees recognized the crucial importance of time and resources when it recommended that school systems devote at least 10 percent of their budgets to staff development and that at least a quarter of educators' work time be "devoted to learning and collaboration with colleagues."

NSDC is not alone in seeing the need to set aside time for teachers to learn. In virtually every major education report in the last decade, time has emerged as the ubiquitous ingredient to producing more effective schools. Once called the "unacknowledged design flaw of American schools," the scheduling of time in schools has very much become acknowledged as a flaw of American education.

Indeed, the call to provide time for teachers to study, learn, and share has become as common as the single, repeated refrain of a popular song. Now that there is virtual unanimity on the need to provide more time, school systems must move into the next phase. They must not only find ways to provide more time for staff development time, they also must acknowledge the array of activities that constitute staff development and make time for those as well.

Making time for staff development

Scheduling regular time for staff development is not a new idea in Iowa City, Iowa. About 20 years ago, Ernest Horn Elementary School pioneered the idea in Iowa City because teachers wanted more time to plan together. That appealed so much to other Iowa City teachers that the shared planning time went districtwide a few years later.

Now, all Iowa City students are released from school one hour early every Thursday. Elementary school students leave at 2 p.m.; high school students at 2:20 p.m. But teachers continue working until 4 p.m., with that extra time devoted to professional development.

The first and third Thursdays of every month are set aside for the building's staff development agenda. If a school has a goal of improving student writing, for example, then the staff will focus on that. If another school is worried about math achievement, then its focus shifts in that direction.

The second and fourth Thursdays are districtwide staff development times. On those days, teachers typically meet according to their subject area or grade level. Other times may be given over to an issue like technology training.

"Professional development is part of a teacher's job. It's not an add-on. They shouldn't be expected to go back and work on Saturday or at night. If it's really important, then we need to provide the time and the opportunities for them," said Pamela Ehly, director of instruction for the Iowa City Community School District.

At Holt Public Schools in Holt, Michigan, setting aside time for professional development grew out of teachers' investigation into successful schools. "When they saw great teaching and learning, they consistently found that there was significant collaborative time built in for the faculty," said Tom Davis, Holt's assistant superintendent for secondary education.

So, seven years ago, Holt's middle and high school students began arriving at school at 11:30 a.m. every Wednesday, four hours after teachers started their day. Teachers voted to create the time by exchanging their daily prep period for one long period together every week. The time that students lost on Wednesday morning was added back into the schedule to create slightly longer days on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday.

"When it began, teachers agreed that it would be 'no business as usual.' That means we don't allow district curriculum groups to meet. We don't allow teachers to bring kids into the school for any reason. It's strictly set aside as collaborative time," said Davis, who was high school principal when the new schedule was introduced.

One of the unexpected benefits of Holt's set-aside time has been the eagerness–and success–of teachers seeking outside grant money to support programs they develop during that collaborative time together. In one four-year period, teacher-initiated grants brought in $2 million in competitive grants for the district. "When teachers get into this kind of situation of really learning together, they want to do a lot of things. Of course, we didn't have the money so they went after the money themselves," Davis said.

Tying staff development time to money

On the surface, manipulating school schedules may appear to be a way of providing free staff development time. But, in reality, every attempt to provide more time for staff development carries a cost with it. If time is money, then supporters of staff development will ultimately have to translate any changes in school schedules into dollars and cents and show the connection to student learning.

But identifying how much money is being spent today on staff development already is a daunting task. Before the NSDC goal of 10 percent can be realized, school systems have to agree on what should be included under the staff development umbrella and how much is being spent now.

Some districts spend next to nothing on professional development and few spend more than three to five percent, said Tom Corcoran, senior research fellow at the Consortium for Policy Research in Education.

Flint, Michigan, a mid-sized urban school district north of Detroit, is one of the few districts in the country that has tackled the challenge of figuring exactly how much is being spent on staff development.

Funded with a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation, Flint has identified restructuring its staff development operations as a key to improving student learning in the district. A crucial first step toward restructuring is knowing how much money is being spent on staff development now, said Barbara Johnson, who coordinates the Flint effort.

On the face of things, Flint spent $287,000 on professional development during the 1994-95 school year. But, when Flint analyzed its actual expenditures, the district identified 66 line items related to staff development. The total outlay: $1.9 million.

That was surprising enough. Then, the district probed further and concluded that it needed to include university credit and degree payments the district made on behalf of staff and payments to staff for attending programs and for preparing and leading professional development activities.

What Flint discovered then was truly shocking–nearly $13 million or about six percent of the district's annual budget was spent on staff development.

"It was rather alarming, the amount of money we had going into professional development. But we had no evidence that it was making a difference in the way people were doing their jobs," Johnson said.

In fact, the shock factor appears to be a crucial step toward enhancing the perceived value of professional development.

"It makes a big difference when you're talking about six percent of your budget versus one-tenth of one percent of your budget. When you're talking about six percent, then people start paying attention," said Victor Young, architect of the Rockefeller project.

"Once it became 'real money' in Flint, you had school board members paying a lot of attention to it," Young said.

Identifying the money districts spend on professional development is essential for two related reasons, Young said. First, all four districts participating in the Rockefeller project found there was a disconnect between what they were calling professional development and activities that educators believed were part of professional development, he said.

That's a crucial distinction, Young said, because districts will arrive at differing amounts of expenditures depending on how they define professional development.

"If you think of professional development as something that comes only out of the training, classroom didactic model, then you would identify X amount of money," Young said.

Second, expenditures rise as districts expand their view of professional development to include such activities as study groups, collaborative work groups, team meetings, partnerships with universities, and mentoring programs.

"If we want to put more resources into professional development, then we'd better be able to articulate what resources we have now. We have to be able to say what professional development is and how we believe it will improve the teaching and learning for children in our schools," Young said.

"If you spend money in a school district and it's not connected to teaching and learning, then, what's the point?"

States expand their influence in staff development

Several states have begun to recognize their role in encouraging local districts to devote more time and resources to staff development.

"It's hard to read where this is going. It's not at all clear whether they represent a trend or a boomlet. But there has been some movement," said CPRE's Corcoran who has compiled a 50-state analysis of spending on professional development.

Between seven and 10 states have increased their funding for professional development, Corcoran said. But a handful of others have moved away from earlier commitments to extend more resources.

Illinois now sets aside $4 million for professional development. Kentucky provides $23 per child and Massachusetts has set aside $10 million that will allocated to local districts through a formula.

In 1993, a coalition of Missouri education organizations banded together to lobby for staff development funding when the state was under court order to re-draft its funding formulas. "We piggy backed on that to build in more for staff development. I think our state is the envy of many states because of this," said Douglas Miller, coordinator of professional development for the state.

What resulted was a requirement that two percent of all the money allocated for K-12 education must be spent on professional development. The money is divided equally between the state and local school districts. During this fiscal year, they are sharing $24 million.

With its portion of the money, the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education has created an elaborate system of nine regional professional development centers. Much of the state effort revolves around training trainers for local districts.

"We're trying to create capacity," Miller said. He believes staff developers need to stop seeing limitations on what they can do. Instead, he urges them to see the abundance of resources they could use to support more training for teachers. "We tell them that there's plenty of time and that all of this doesn't have to happen between 4 and 6 p.m. It can happen all day, every day."

At a local district, the professional development committee determines how its portion of the money will be spent. The expenditures are audited by the state to insure that they are in line with the legislation's intent and in line with the state's school improvement plan, Miller said.

"There's quite a sting to this too," he said. Districts that don't spend at least 75 percent of their professional development funds in an acceptable manner stand to lose all of their state aid.

The state and local efforts frequently link up with each other, Miller said. "Now, we're in the process of training 5,000 professional development committee members to show them how to lead their districts out of the half-day, one-stop-shopping kind of meeting and thinking," he said.

Similar legislation in Florida provided money that was tied to a requirement to develop school improvement plans. In 1991, the Florida legislature began requiring every school to have a school improvement plan. At the same time, the state began to designate a portion of its state aid money for professional development. Each district receives $4 per child per year that must be spent on staff development.

In Broward County, the current enrollment of 215,000 children means the district receives $860,000 from the state for staff development. In addition, the local districts contributes another $1.80 per child, bringing the district's general staff development budget to $1,247,000 this year. While this seems like a substantial amount, it comes to less than one-tenth of one percent of the district's overall budget of $1.8 billion.

"Our state mandate definitely led the way," said Dianne Aucamp, director of human resources.

Developing Broward County's staff development policy began with collecting data on 12 key indicators, including attendance, parent involvement, and achievement on key tests. Based on that data, the district and each school identify goals and draft a plan for meeting those goals. This year, the district's goals include achieving diversity, developing partnerships, coping with the district's rapid growth, and using technology to improve student achievement.

Broward operates what is essentially a two-tiered staff development system, one at the central office and one that is school-based. "If the district says something is a priority, then the district says makes professional development opportunities available," Aucamp said.

Because local schools identify their own goals, each school also has to devise its own staff development plan. "But they have the resources they need to do that. They can hire consultants, participate in school district programs, send people to conferences, whatever they want to do with their money," Aucamp said. The district has decided to trust schools to make the right decisions about how to use their money, as long as they can demonstrate progress toward their goals, she said.

Influencing policy makers to support staff development

Before educators will be able to convince legislators or local school boards to boost the time and money devoted to professional development, they need hard data on how time and money are being spent.

Mary Fulton, a policy analyst with the Education Commission of the States, said identifying how much is being spent on staff development and how it's being spent is a crucial step for states, school districts, and local schools. "You're not going to get any additional money from anybody unless you can explain how you're using your current dollars and how you're going to use current and new dollars more effectively," she said.

CPRE’s Corcoran agreed. "I don't find a lot of hard attitudes from legislators saying they don't want to spend this money. But I do hear an awful lot of questions about what we get for it. Professional development money has been used in a very fragmented, unfocused way. Legislators know that. Maybe they don't know it out of a deep understanding, but they know it in a gut way," he said.

"If we want to get legislators focused, then we need to go to them knowing what we have now, with better ideas about how we're going to use what's already there, and how we'd use new money if we had it," Corcoran said.

"We haven't spent enough time thinking about that. And we need to."

Note

For a copy of the CPRE profile of staff development expenditures in your state, contact CPRE Publications at (215) 573-0700, ext. 0.

About the Author

Joan Richardson is the director of publications for the National Staff Development Council, 1128 Nottingham Road, Grosse Pointe Park, Michigan 48230, (313) 824-5061, (313) 824-5062 fax, (e-mail: joan.richardson@nsdc.org).

 

Three related articles follow.

 

NSDC Time and Resources Resolutions

The National Staff Development Council believes that high quality staff development is essential to school reform and that school systems have an obligation to ensure that employees are thoroughly prepared to successfully discharge their responsibilities. Time for these activities can often be provided via extensive on-the-job-opportunities and collaborative work with no additional resources.

Therefore, the National Staff Development Council recommends that school systems dedicate at least 10 percent of their budgets to staff development and that at least 25 percent of educator's work time be devoted to learning and collaboration with colleagues.

Passed by the NSDC Board of Trustees, December 1995.

 

Where Do You Find the Time?

Watts and Castle (1993) outlined five approaches used by educators across the country to create more time for professional development.

1. Freed-Up Time. Using various arrangements to release teachers from direct student supervision. These include enlisting administrators to teach classes, authorizing teaching assistants and college interns to teach classes at regular intervals under the direction of a teacher, and teaming teachers so that one teacher instructs for another. Provides only small blocks of time. Often resented by parents.

2. Restructured Time. Altering the traditional calendar, school day, or teaching schedule. Serious implications for busing, union contracts, facilities maintenance, state regulations and budgets. It also means changing public expectations, a reason few schools or districts have tried this.

3. Common Time. Using common planning time for teachers working with the same children or teaching the same grade on a regular basis. Teachers have time to work on restructuring programs, interdisciplinary teams, subject-area collaboration, and grade-level planning.

4. Better-Used Time. Using currently scheduled meetings and professional development activities more effectively by focusing on planning and collaboration.

5. Buying Time. Hiring more teachers, clerks, parents, and support staff to create smaller class sizes and/or expanded or additional planning sessions.

Source: Watts, G.D., & Castle, S. (1993, Sept.). The time dilemma in school restructuring. Phi Delta Kappan, 75(1), 306-310.

 

 

To Read More on this Subject

Aronson, Julie. Stop the clock: Ending the tyranny of time in education. Far West Laboratory for Educational Research and Development. To order a copy, call (415) 565-3000. The order number is PO-95-01. A single copy is $7.

Corcoran, Thomas. (1995, June). Helping teachers teach well: Transforming professional development. CPRE Policy Briefs.

Maeroff, Gene. (1993). Team building for school change: Equipping teachers for new roles. New York: Teacher College Press.

National Education Association. Time strategies (part of the NEA Teacher-to-Teacher series). No. 2902-X-00-3T. NEA Professional Library, P.O. Box 509, West Haven, CT, 06516-9904, 1-800-229-4200.

National Education Commission on Time and Learning. Prisoners of time. To order a copy, call 1-800-299-5486 or fax a request to 703-243-0496. A single copy is $6.75. The full report also is available online at www.emich.edu/public/emu_programs/tlc/toc.html

North Central Regional Laboratory. (1994). Professional development: Changing times. Policy Briefs, Report 4. To order, call 708-571-4700 or fax a request to (708) 218-4989.

Raywid, Mary Anne. (1993, Sept.). Finding time for collaboration. Educational Leadership, 51, 30-34.