As Chris Livaccari, our Head of School, shared at the beginning of the school year, our key themes for the 2019-2020 school year are connectedness, continuous improvement, and sustained inquiry. Together, we are working to create a culture of learning that engages and challenges not just our students, but also our educators.
Left picture: Teacher-led workshops about Gender Spectrum. Right picture: Sharing resources from conferences during faculty meeting
Aligned with our school’s mission and vision, professional development for teachers is joyful, engaging, inquiry-based, collaborative, and reflective. PKS is committed to the professional growth of all educators and provides ongoing professional learning opportunities throughout the school year, tailored to our faculty’s needs.
Teachers sharing take-aways after observing each other’s classes.
Much of our teachers’ ongoing learning and growth happens right here on campus. Throughout the school year, teachers host mini-workshops to share resources and strategies they learned from conferences, and observe each other teaching to expand their lens and find inspiration. This year we also built time into our Wednesday faculty meeting schedule for cross-grade level interest groups to meet, with the goal to digging more deeply into an area of passion.
Attending workshop at Opal School about Constructing Collaborative, Courageous Learning Communities.
Outside of PKS, our teachers attend conferences, workshops, online courses, and webinars, and visit other schools to stay up-to-date on innovative practices and approaches in the education field. We also partner with leading institutions in the US and Chinese speaking areas of the world, sharing our expertise by hosting school visits and by presenting at local and national conferences such as the Progressive Education Network National Conference, the National Chinese Language Conference, and the California Mathematics Council Conference. At all these events, our teachers meet and collaborate with educators from all over the world and bring back new ideas to share with colleagues to support our students’ learning and growth.
We know that students learn best when they feel connected, have a sense of belonging, and are both challenged and supported in their stretch zone. The same is true for our teachers. For that reason, we continue to structure our professional learning around these principles to support teacher growth as we bring the PKS mission to life in the elementary school.