CULLOWHEE (August 18, 2015)—Middle Fork Elementary School has experienced direct benefits from an ongoing professional development working relationship with the North Carolina Center for the Advancement of Teaching, according to Principal Sara Cook.
The Winston-Salem/Forsyth County school first had two teachers attend an NCCAT program lead by faculty member Dr. Deb Teitelbaum.
“My staff called me and said we need that person to come to our school, and she can,” Cook said. “Deb came to our school in January. She sat down with us and walked through our school. It gave us a chance to have someone else come in and see what was going on at our school.”
Teitelbaum visited Middle Fork Elementary School three times this year. She went to the school as part of NCCAT’s School-Based Programming Services. NCCAT can now provide onsite training at a school or district facility.
“The biggest thing was that she could come and share with us and then be available to answer our questions,” Cook said. “The feedback was so different from any other training. Usually, someone does training and then you are lucky to get an answer back if you have any questions. But in this training from NCCAT we created a relationship and support that we could continue to build and could tackle issues at our school together. Deb had great follow-through.”
Middle Fork Elementary School kept the conversation going and decided to attend a Research and Development Team program in Cullowhee.
“We talked with Deb about things we were still struggling with and she told us about the Research and Development Team program opportunity,” Cook said. “We wrote up what we wanted to accomplish and applied. We’ve wanted to work on these issues, but we’ve never had the time. Now we are here and doing it. This week buys you time.”
While at NCCAT from June 29–July 2 the Middle Fork Elementary team worked on individualizing personal learning plans and planning for skill deficits with a focus on literacy and reading. They developed a working literacy continuum that teachers can use as a resource.
Team members said they benefited from the multiple ways to receive professional development and felt being able to return to NCCAT’s campus for the focused time in a Research and Development Team program was very valuable.
“We’ve gotten things we can walk away from here with and implement right away,” Cook said. “We are making much more progress than we thought we would. Working with Deb and NCCAT has been awesome. The first thing our teachers said when we saw Deb this morning was ‘when can she come back?’”
For more on NCCAT Fall registration visit http://www.nccat.org/2015-fall-programming-list
For more on School-Based Programming Services visit http://www.nccat.org/programs/school-based-programming-services
For more on Research and Development Teams programs visit http://www.nccat.org/programs/research-and-development-teams-0