By Annabeth Miller,
ShowMe Times Editor

Teachers in the Dexter schools will participate in a professional development program this school year that has been crafted by the local school administrators and their peers on the faculty.

Superintendent Dr. Thomas Sharp and Assistant Superintendent Dr. Kim Flowers presented the 2011-2011 Professional Development Plan to the district’s board at its monthly meeting Tuesday evening. The new plan has been developed by a committee of representatives from each of the four schools in the district.

Sharp informed the board that one of the first components in the plan was completed Tuesday afternoon, during professional development workshops at each of the four buildings. In addition, Sharp said each building sent representatives to participate in another building’s workshop.

Prior to each of this school year’s district-wide professional development days, teachers and administrators on the committee will meet to finalize plans.

“We going to have something meaningful and something that they can relate back to their jobs,” Sharp said of the workshops. “We feel like the committee has taken a lot more ownership of it; they want to more colloberation – not just pockets of professional development. All of that is, I think, real good spin.”

Flowers said administrators agreed that one key ingredient to effective professional development was time. She said that faculty are not able to get the most of training and development after they have spent the day teaching in the classroom.

“We presented a plan where – starting with our core – we will spend half-days in orderly training sessions working through our vocabulary is aligned, our instructional practice is aligned,” Flowers said. “If you start out teaching something in second grade, if you change the terminology that by the time a student is in fifth or sixth grade, it’s confusing for the student.”

Flowers cited as an example using some of the same language in high school science classes that is introduced to students in younger grades.

“Learning a new skill takes 7-10 times for an average student to engrain that into long-term memory, “ she said.

Board members at the meeting also received a report on the Parents As Teacher (PAT) program from Melanie Stoelting. She reported the program screened 532 children last school year, and 90 was referred to other agencies for hearing, vision or developmental delays. More than 200 families were in the “high risk” categories and the PAT staff made more than 1,400 home visits.

Sharp reminded the board that the district has Contagious Disease protocols in place. The superintendent report that are “no known active cases of tuberculosis on campus.”


In additional action Tuesday evening:

• Received the audit report from a representative of the accounting firm of Cook and Hamlin, LLC;
• Agreed to consider a refinancing proposal for the district at the October meeting;
• The Health Fair as part of the district wellness program for employees was rescheduled from Oct. 21 to Feb. 3;
• The Booster Club will be sponsoring a Dodgeball Tournament during Homecoming Weekend on Oct. 8;
• The Historic Downtown Dexter Association will be sponsoring the Fall Festival in the Downtown District on Saturday, Oct. 8 and there will be school organizations, including PAT, participating;

Sharp introduced Tyler Lappe from Oak Ridge to the Board. Lappe is a student at Three Rivers College and attended the meeting to observe.

In closed session, the board approved Cody Boyer as a volunteer coach for the T.S. Hill Middle School wrestling program and the high school boys basketball.

The next regularly scheduled meet of the board is set for 6 p.m., Tuesday, Oct. 18.