What do teachers do on professional development days?

[Anonymous]

Our charter school takes a million PD days and is cagey about what teachers do on them. Even if you're not at a charter, I'd be curious what teachers do on and think about PD days.

[Anonymous]

I catch up on work and plan. I also get some time to clean my room and disinfect - February is a great time for it. Especially this year with all the illnesses going around!

[Anonymous]

Catch up on parent calls and emails. Sometimes have meetings about particular things like prepping the next units. But also bigger picture things like, should out school use x curriculum or y curriculum.

Sometimes a trainer comes. Sometimes I meet with the assistant principal who is assigned to coach me, for feedback and to strategize how to do better.

[Anonymous]

Right now I’m making my copies for next month while the pd plays on my computer behind me. I’d rather be with kids.

[Anonymous]

It's a mistake to take the name "PD" too literally. Some schools call it "records day" or "teacher work day" or "in-service day".

[Anonymous]

I teach in NOVA. PD days are dedicated to content specific professional learning. Some of it is related to curriculum related. There are also year long options that cover co-teaching or teaching English learners or other topics. For the most part, these are in person and attendance is taken. We have dedicated teacher workdays quarterly before grades are due. It seems to be the standard in suburban divisions. Not sure if Dc is different.

[Anonymous]

Today my wife was glued to a live training for most of the morning.

[Anonymous]

For district PD days we are in trainings all or most of the day. In DCPS it's usually an opening session and 4 70 minute sessions. I wish we had "teacher work days" instead of PD (at least for some of them), to catch up on grading, parent emails and everything else.
For school based PD days we are usually in meetings all day and sometimes given 30m-1hour to plan based on those trainings.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Today my wife was glued to a live training for most of the morning.

I was glued to live trainings but had to report in person to do so. On the upside I got caught up on grading and was able to get stuff tidied and organized. Even did a working lunch.

[Anonymous]

At Flint Hill, it is meetings, meetings, and more useless meetings, particularly the Lower School. The teachers would love to have time to plan lessons or work on their classrooms, but the administration needs to look busy.

[Anonymous]

My teacher friend gleefully tells me how she pops by the school long enough to sign in, then walks straight out the back door for a day off. She said all the teachers at her school do this.

[Anonymous]

There are charter schools that now take professional development days every single week of the school year. How this is allowed is beyond me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My teacher friend gleefully tells me how she pops by the school long enough to sign in, then walks straight out the back door for a day off. She said all the teachers at her school do this.

ugh

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My teacher friend gleefully tells me how she pops by the school long enough to sign in, then walks straight out the back door for a day off. She said all the teachers at her school do this.

ugh

Don’t buy it. No teacher does that.

Notice it isn’t even a teacher responding… just someone with a teacher “friend”. PD days aren’t even set up in a way that this could occur, and I’ve worked in multiple districts.

Remember where we are. DCUM posters live to insult teachers.

[Anonymous]

I’ll answer your question.

I get two PD days a year. They are the only days I’m actually given work time to do any of the following:

Grade papers
Plan lessons
Meet with colleagues to align lessons
Revise / align midterms and finals
Update student learning plans
Email parents
Meet on committees (curriculum, data, discipline, etc.)
Write college letters of recommendation

That’s 16 hours A YEAR I get at work to do these tasks. In a normal week, they happen before school, after school, and on every Saturday and Sunday. They do not occur during the school day. No time.

So I consider them a nod of appreciation. For 38 weeks of the school year, I’m expected to pull ridiculous hours. For two weeks a school year, I get a reprieve.