Our school board was very progressive in promoting professional development. They backed up their ideas with money. They started a clause 14 which was a fund calculated so that every teacher got to attend an in service every 2 1/2 years.
Well, guess what? Not every teacher wanted to participate in professional development. So there was money left. Well, you know who applied for money that was left. Sometimes I got to go to 2 PD sessions in one year.
Now we are between Edmonton and Calgary and Banff and Jasper are just as handy. Both Calgary and Edmonton have Universities so there were many capable people to put on workshops. Who wouldn't want to go to Banff or Jasper for an PD session?
Now the board also hired well known scholars to do major professional development. .
They hired Madeline Hunter to get us all on the same page as far as lesson planning and presentation was concerned.
It was also an excellent tool for teacher evaluation.
So there you have it. I beat the system and I have no egrets.
