Johnston Schools Promotes Cale to New Director of Teaching & Learning Position

An important piece in the professional development plan fell into place Monday night.

The Johnston school board approved the hiring of a director of teaching and learning.

The position will provide leadership in developing and maintaining the district's instructional coaching program, mentoring and professional development programs.

Debra Cale will leave her Johnston schools position as the kindergarten to 12th-grade coordinator of reading, language arts, ESL and social studies to take over the new post.

Jim Casey, associate superintendent, said the position was born out of the need to improve the district's professional learning opportunities.

"When we started looking at the whole movement of the instructional model, curriculum offerings and instructional processes," he said. "We want to provide resources and needs."

In the process, the district also established a coaching program.

For the 2012-13 school year, the district hired four instructional coaches to work at the building level. The coaches will be at , , and elementary schools. The district will hire four additional teachers for , , and for the 2013-14 school year.

Cale currently supervises, leads, coaches and evaluates literacy specialists in five elementary buildings, as well as supervises the English as a Second Language program in the district.

Cale received her master's of education in curriculum and instructional technology at Iowa State University in 1999. Before that she recede a bachelor of science in secondary special education from the University of Iowa in 1988.

Her resume is packed with experience as a collaborative and content mastery teacher to a school improvement consultant with .

In 1991-92 school year, she was named Teacher of the Year while working at Pearce Middle School in Texas.

Casey said the three of the four instructional coaches were hired from within the district, while one is new to the district at the beginning of the school year.