From Jennifer Longstaff, Della Lamb Community School following the JP Institute for Excellence in Education, 2009:

Hi Janie-

I just wanted you to know that again, JP Institute is the most valuable professional development conference that our teacher leaders and administrators attend every year.  EVERY time we find something valuable that we can take back and use.  We have used a lot of things this year that we’ve heard about or learned about at JP Institute:

1. I showed the Children of the Code videos to our entire faculty this year at the beginning of the year.  I have referred back to them several times already in discussing behavior management and academics with our teachers at Della.  That has provided a really nice frame of reference for our staff.  Those videos have captured what we try to instill in our teachers.  

2. I learned a lot about Response to Intervention through the JP Institutes over the last few years.  This year we have been required by the state to write an additional School Improvement Plan (on top of the one we already have to have for the school as a whole as a part of not meeting AYP) specifically for our English Language Learners that are receiving ESL services.  I had already been working on RTI plans for that category of learners here to start this new year and I am able to use it for our School Improvement Plan for ELLs too.  It’s coming together very nicely.

3. From some of my sessions with Doug (am I saying the right name?) this year on Leadership, I got an idea to implement a system that will be more timely in responding to teacher needs as far as pacing and mastery is concerned.  All of my Team leaders are meeting with me on every Monday afternoon to analyze Pacing Guide data from the previous week.  We use a chart to look specifically at pace and at testing report sheets to identify mastery concerns.  The Team leaders bring their team’s PGs with them and go through them, then report to me.  I keep a weekly master log of concerns and do targeted observations/evaluations/coaching and I can better direct our Academic Coach on a week by week basis, delegating some of the concerns to her.  Each team leader also makes themselves a follow-up list for things like multiple absences of kids, incorrect/incomplete PGs or report sheets, incomplete retesting, etc.

Anyway, thanks again for giving us such high quality professional development!
Take care,
Jenn