PUSD employees are fortunate to have many opportunities for professional development and collaboration.

Professional Staff Development

The District sponsors three days of professional staff development during the course of the school year. One of the three days is a District-wide, “university” of course offerings for all teachers and some support staff in the District. Teachers have a wide variety of course offerings and collaboration meetings from which to choose.

The other two professional development days take place at the various school sites, where site leaders and teacher leaders work with staff members to analyze student data, make curricular adjustments based upon student need, and learn and incorporate new and innovative strategies to support student achievement.

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Staff Development Steering Committee

Teachers in the District are essential to the professional development process. Representative teachers sit on the Staff Development Steering Committee, which decides upon major focus areas for the staff development days and helps to choose guest speakers and topics for discussion and learning. Teachers may choose to develop projects for their colleagues to receive ongoing training using Staff Development Reform funds. Both the teachers implementing the training and the teachers receiving the training are reimbursed for their time and effort. The Curriculum Department also funds learning opportunities for staff members in a variety of areas: curriculum development, textbook adoption, instructional strategies, technology implementation, and others.

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Collaboration Periods

Teachers also work with one another during collaboration periods during the school week. This collaborative work is very instrumental in maintaining consistency of curriculum design and sharing best practices with one another. Elementary and middle school teachers have been using the collaboration period for some time; high school teachers will be implementing a collaboration period beginning in the school year 2006-2007.

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Ongoing Professional Development

Ongoing professional development is a very high priority in Pleasanton Unified School District. It is a priority for our new teachers, most of whom participate in an intensive, two year induction program which is called TV/TIP (Tri-Valley Teacher Induction Project). Professional development is also a high priority for all other teachers who participate in three mandatory staff development days each year (funded mostly by the state) and have the opportunity to be compensated for up to three additional days (funded through District funds).

In addition our teachers and other staff are encouraged and take advantage of extensive training opportunities at school site and on their own.

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Calendar of Staff Development Offerings

The District Curriculum Department publishes every two months an extensive calendar of staff development offerings in our district and at other locations in the County. For a copy of the current calendar click here.

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