Title: LA1 Cooperative Agreement between the School District and CTA

Recommendation:

I recommend that the School Board authorize the Superintendent of Schools to develop and execute a cooperative agreement with the Palm Beach County Classroom Teachers Association (CTA) for implementation of the Educational Research and Dissemination (ER&D) Program.

Description:

The ER&D Program is a union-sponsored research based professional development program.  It was designed by the American Federation of Teachers and is intended to build the capacity of local unions to deliver high quality professional development services either independently, or in collaboration with their school districts.

Specifically, the CTA has proposed an initial professional development in-service offering that includes Foundations I, Reading Endorsement, Thinking Mathematics I, Instructional Strategies That Work, and Managing Anti-Social Behavior.  Full implementation of the cooperative agreement will require the following:

·        CTA will identify professional developers eligible to deliver this professional development, and will specify the areas in which each person is authorized to provide information.

·        Professional developers must meet State and District criteria if they are to deliver the reading endorsement portion of the program.

·        Components must be written or identified that delineate the objectives which participants will be mastering in order to receive learning credit.

·        Where credit is being assigned for content mastery in core curriculum areas (Reading Endorsement, Thinking Mathematics I), a district representative must be identified to act as a liaison regarding the content of the professional development.

·        Where credit is being assigned for instructional strategies (Foundations I, Instructional Strategies That Work, Managing Anti-social Behavior), a district representative must be identified to act as a liaison regarding the content of the professional development.

·        Professional developers must document the manner in which they will plan, deliver, follow up and evaluate the impact of the professional development.

·        Once the professional development is completed, program designers must submit documentation of implementation and impact prior to participants receiving the learning credit (in-service points) for program completion.

·        District Staff Development Team Contact and CTA representative will review all necessary paperwork to ensure compliance with the Florida Professional Development System Protocol Standards prior to finalizing the program.

Financial Impact:
The financial impact is approximately $40,000.

For Additional Information, contact:

Gerald A. Williams, Esq.

James Hayes, Jr., (hayesja@palmbeach.k12.fl.us)

Van Ludy, (ludy@palmbeach.k12.fl.us)