8 The News-Press
October 25, 2012
Union, district to offer separate teacher classes Groups will provide ongoing education By Jane Reuter
jreuter@ourcoloradonews.com The Douglas County teachers’ union will continue to offers its professional development classes to teachers, despite the expiration of its collective bargaining agreement with the school district. Until this year, the classes were offered free to all teachers through the district. But the Douglas County Federation now will offer them for an asyet-undetermined fee through Adams State University’s teacher professional development division. Meanwhile, the school district is creating its own set of teacher classes, designed to tie into its strategic plan, pay-for-performance network and evaluation system. Both the union and district believe their courses offer teachers unique benefits. “We’ve provided this research-based professional development since 1999,
and we felt they were critical enough we should continue to offer them,” said Joanne Slanovich, president of the Douglas County Federation of Retirees, part of the union. “It’s part of who we are as an organization. Why would we want to take it away from people simply because the district said they were going in a different direction?” Pat McGraw, the district’s development and innovation officer, didn’t disagree. “We’ve encouraged the union to continue to offer the courses in an outside venue,” he said. “I think they’re not overlapping.” Sometime in November, the union hopes to hold its first classes, most of which will run five weeks for a total of 18 hours. All told, it will offer 15 classes, ranging from Foundations of Effective Teaching to Thinking Mathematics. The district’s online catalog includes 26 courses, among them Backward Planning and Transformational Geometry. Some of the classes are designed for specific schools, such as the Hope Online K-12 school, and others — like the STEM
Institute and iPad Training — aimed at 21st-century learning skills. District officials are calling on staff at various schools to help guide them. “Because we are a choice district, we have different programming at different schools,” McGraw said. “It’s not one size fits all. We’re tailoring the development in the schools, dependent upon the program that’s offered.” The internationally offered union classes are based on the Educational Research and Dissemination Program created by its national organization, the American Federation of Teachers. Teachers who take the union’s ER&D classes are required to apply the methods in the classroom and report those outcomes. That makes the education an ongoing process, Slanovich said, ensuring the information is ingrained in the individual teacher. “It’s not just research-based,” Slanovich said. “It’s research that has been validated by other researchers. It works with different groups of students. I’ve seen it work in very small districts. I’ve seen it work in large districts.” The district’s also is based on national research, McGraw said, tailored “to meet the needs of our district.” Doing so is hard work, he admitted. “It’s incredible work, though.” Teachers are not required to take any of the classes, though the district offers teachers a small financial incentive in exchange for a specific investment of time. The union is still working with Adams State to gain final approval on its classes. That approval will extend for three years,
Union extends classes to parents Free sessions begin this month By Jane Reuter jreuter@ourcoloradonews.com Parents seeking to help young children sharpen their reading skills can choose from a series of ongoing evening classes. The Douglas County teachers’ union this month kicked off what will be a continuous series of free workshops designed for parents. The classes focus on phonics, fluency, vocabulary and comprehension, and are offered this fall at elementary schools in Parker and Castle Rock. Douglas County School District teachers will lead the classes, using research from the national Educational Research and Dissemination program originally created for teachers. “Parents have asked about these classes,” said Joanne Slanovich, president of the Douglas County Federation of Retirees, part of the union. “We felt the courses were so good and teachers were learning so much we should open it up to parents.” Two evening classes are planned in Castle Rock on Oct. 24 and 25, and two more in Parker on Nov. 7 and 14. For more information and to register, visit www. douglascountyclassrooms.com. Each class is limited to 30 participants.
and Slanovich said classes will be offered “as long as there is a request for them.” Information on the union’s classes is available at www.douglascountyclassrooms.com. A list of district-offered courses is available on the DCSD Web site www. dcsdk12.org/centerforprofessionaldevelopment/index.htm
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