Staff Development Days

Due to the construction that took place over the summer, we delayed the start of the school year a bit and then the first four days were for faculty and staff only. Interestingly, this feature to the school calendar -- concentrating staff development time at the beginning of the year -- allowed an opportunity to work together as a faculty and proved to be very beneficial. We felt that we had a chance to concentrate on specified themes and to start the year “on the same page.”

I know that next week’s schedule of days off can be difficult for our working parents. We chose to take Wednesday as a faculty staff development day because it fell on a day where there were a number of county-wide opportunities for our staff – schools across the county will be having in-service days on this same day. It will be the only time during the actual school year that we are off for a full day of faculty in-service. In years past, these days came around a bit more frequently.

So, other than next week with the in-service day and the Teachers’ Convention, we will only be off for scheduled holidays. The idea of clustering the full-day staff development days at the beginning of the school year went so well this past September that I am giving serious thought to proposing a calendar for next year that will be similar in that regard (but, without the extra delay due to construction!).

Just thought you might want to know . . .