Our Philosophy
Dalton Public Schools believes that professional learning opportunities for our employees are an investment. Our philosophy is to focus on three key elements for successful professional development: formal learning, coaching, and experiences. We realize that formal learning should be tailored to areas of focus. Another key aspect of effective development is coaching. The types of coaching conversations we encourage with our people are on-the-job, mentoring, feedback, and instructional. Finally, we encourage hands-on experiences. Research tells us the majority of learning comes from actual experiences; therefore, providing job-embedded, hands on experiences is a key component of the professional learning experiences we provide in DPS. Federal and State funds are ear-marked for professional learning and cannot be spent in other ways. We attempt to offer professional learning onsite whenever possible, however, sometimes these opportunities are only offered outside of the district and some additional travel is necessary.
Professional Learning Supports
We support professional learning of our employees in wide variety of ways. The support we offer is both informal and formal.
Informal
- Collaboration amongst staff through grade level/content common design/planning time
- Encouragement of teacher reflection on the engagement level of their students
- Mentorships
Formal
- Leadership Academy
- Teacher induction
- Literacy coaching
- Literacy courses (primary/intermediate/middle school courses one, two, and ongoing training)
- Conferences (local, state, and national)
- RESA courses
- Certification opportunties (ESOL, Gifted, AP, etc.)