Getting out of the school building to make it a better place

This past Friday to Sunday, six of our faculty members attended the Coalition of Essential Schools Fall Forum in San Francisco.  Earlier last week, our Director of Business and Operations was in Athens for the first in a series of classes on human resources topics.  For a few days this week, our Middle Campus Principal has been visiting middle schools in Texas using Conscious Discipline in their daily routines and structures.  Next week, I’ll be traveling to Boston along with several other ANCS teachers to the Learning and the Brain Conference.

Each year, through a combination of our operating budget and grant funds, our school provides opportunities for the continued growth and development of our faculty and staff.  In keeping with the idea that “less is more” we send groups of people to a few specific conferences and workshops aligned with our mission and goals each year—Fall Forum, the School Reform Initiative’s Winter Meeting, Conscious Discipline summer institute—while also leaving room for individuals or smaller teams to take part in learning experiences that are more targeted to their own needs and interests, such as math curriculum planning or differentiated instruction.  All of these are in addition to our regular professional development that occurs at school during the course of the year.

Why do we make such a commitment to making it possible for many teachers and staff to attend workshops, conferences, classes, and school visits each year?  There are three main reasons:

To learn more about practices and topics that will improve our work back at ANCS: This is probably the most obvious reason why we send people to conferences.  But it’s not just about absorbing information at a conference.  It’s also about learning from the perspectives of others who are implementing similar approaches to teaching and learning so that we may figure out how to avoid potential stumbling blocks, where to adjust based on our school’s needs, and what the conditions for success are.  For example, the Fall Forum featured a session on “standards-based grading” like that used at ANCS, and some of our teachers in attendance were able to gain new insights by talking with others from different schools in different contexts about how it works at their schools.

To contribute to the learning of others: We take adult learning as seriously as student learning at our school, and we consider sharing our best work with others a core responsibility as a charter school.  Over the past few years, we’ve had ANCS teachers selected to present at the National Council for the Social Studies conference, Fall Forum, Georgia Math Educators conference, and more.  Teaching others about our own work also helps us to reflect and improve upon it by making it public to other educators.

To build our team: Collaboration is an essential part of working at ANCS, and, therefore, developing strong working relationships among teachers and staff across the school is critical.  Getting to know colleagues as individuals isn’t always easy in the day-to-day busyness of schools, and traveling together to another city, engaging in informal conversation about the day over dinner, discussing conference sessions on a plane ride home—each of these helps connect our teachers to one another as a part of a team working together to carry out the school’s mission.

In this space and in other venues over the rest of the year, we’ll find ways to share some of the learning that’s come from these experiences.  Each of them contributes to making our school the best it can be for our students, teachers, and community.