1. School Designs Professional Development
School Quality = Leader Quality + Instructor Quality
EdisonLearning provides educators with the resources,
training, and ongoing support they need to improve
their skills and increase achievement in their schools. Our
professional development program ensures leaders and
instructors perform at the highest level through training,
conferences, coaching and career management tools.
Building Strong Leaders
High-performing principals and lead teachers excel as
instructional leaders, culture builders, business managers,
and motivators. EdisonLearning’s professional development is
a focused, inclusive program designed to increase leadership
capacity.
• Pre-service training prepares new EdisonLearning principals
to be effective leaders on the first day through:
a O rientation provided by the assigned Regional General
Manager and Vice President of Educational Services.
a A four-day national principal professional development
event.
a T he launch of a two-year Principal Mentorship Program
in which every new principal is assigned a successful
veteran principal for support and guidance.
• National conferences offer unmatched opportunities for
Principals and lead teachers to learn, network and expand
upon their pre-service training. These events include:
a T he bi-annual EdisonLearning Leadership Development
Academy (ELDA) for all principals
a T h e EdisonLearning Leadership Team Training (ELTT) to
help new schools get started on the right track
a N ational reach provides not only training, but a unique
opportunity for Principals to meet, share best practices
and connect with their EdisonLearning colleagues
• Coaching and mentoring programs provide individual
on-site coaching and consultation, and smaller gatherings
are led by field teams under the guidance of the Vice
President for Educational Services.
• Career management tools include EdisonLearning’s
proprietary Leadership Evaluation Matrix and Professional
Growth Plan for each principal and lead teacher.
Supporting Effective Teachers
EdisonLearning’s instructional staff development is unique
because the training is comprehensive and ongoing. New
teachers receive pre-training that immerses them in our
School Designs model and provides them a solid foundation
for future growth. From there, we continually develop
teachers through:
• Annual Instructional Leadership Conference (ILC).
• Teaching Academy for new teachers.
• Teaching quality tools including career ladders, performance
rubrics, and professional growth plans.
• A school organization which promotes dedicated
individual planning periods to support intentional,
rigorous instruction – Academies based on grade level
which are further organized into Houses of cross-grade
teams of 4 to 6 teachers with a lead teacher for each House.
• House teams support each others professional growth
through peer observation.
In the EdisonLearning design, teacher training is continuous.
It happens at periodic formal gatherings and conferences,
and – as in the case of daily House meetings where teams
plan and solve problems together – it happens each and
every day.
Convenient, Flexible and Personal
The scope and scale of our Professional Development
program is a distinct advantage of EdisonLearning® School
Designs. Our emphasis on leadership development and
support for effective teachers are contributing factors
to the proven success of our School Designs model. In
addition, our flexible distance learning approach augments
our traditional face-to-face solution by offering convenient
webinars and flexible anywhere, anytime online programs.
“EdisonLearning has some of the best professional development I’ve
encountered in my career – always innovative and cutting edge.”
- Jamy Jackson, Principal
Helen Thackson Middle School, York, PA
