Wakefield Schools Professional Development: What Teachers and Administrators Are Learning

As soon as school doors closed to students this summer, they re-opened for many Wakefield teachers and administrators, who had a jam-packed schedule of professional development over the summer.

“The first day that teachers were gone, the administrative team, along with department heads and teacher leaders, didn’t have one day off: They came back for professional development,” said Nancy Santapaola, director of curriculum for Wakefield Public Schools.

How Staff at Wakefield Schools Improved Over the Summer
According to Santapaola, there were seven separate professional development academies that occurred throughout the summer.

Each had a separate focus. One academy was specifically for first-year teachers. Another trained 115 staff members to use Atlas, an online curriculum mapping tool. Another taught administrators how to effectively leverage school data to direct day-to-day activities.

Santapaola said that she was amazed by the dialogue that developed between Wakefield school faculty members during the summer.

“The conversations between our staff members are absolutely fantastic,” Santapaola said.

Updated Goals
According to state law, Massachusetts’ school districts must annually institute an updated plan for professional development.

Because Wakefield Memorial High School is being considered for re-accredidation this year, high school faculty members recently completed a two-year long self-study process. During this time, the school’s core values and strategic plans were updated.

The biggest change to the strategic plan was to encourage faculty members to work less with members of the same content and grade-level groups and to work more collaboratively across the K-12 spectrum.

The purpose of working across the K-12 spectrum is to keep learning and social expectations consistent, and to prepare students for high school so that the district can meet its long term goals.

The professional development curriculum was also updated this year to reflect those changes, Santapaola said.

An Ongoing Task
But professional development isn't just a summer activity. Wakefield Public Schools also holds regularly scheduled professional development meetings that ensure Wakefield’s educational goals are being met and exceeded.

The district provides a network of support to teachers that want to engage in additional professional development, and offers a list of outside resources that they can use.

Despite all of the resources that Wakefield offers to its committed and dedicated educational professionals, there sometimes isn’t enough professional development to go around.

“I always feel bad when I have to turn people away, and that all comes down to funding,” Santapaola said. “There are people that do come and they weren’t approved, but they’ll still work hard."