Our mission is to provide the training
and job-embedded support necessary to ensure that
every school has a high quality staff development
teacher who can foster a professional learning community
and to support effective school organizations as
they implement the MCPS system initiatives described
in our Call to Action.
SDTP Vision
High quality staff development exists
in every school with teachers working collaboratively
to set goals and refine and expand practices that
improve learning for all students.
Cathy Owens
Director for Learning
National Staff Development Council
The Staff Development Teacher Project came into being in 2000 as a key component of the new MCPS Professional Growth System. In that year, a full-time position, the staff development teacher (SDT), was allocated to every school in the county. The SDT is a resource whose charge it is to facilitate the evolution of a school-based professional learning community focused on improving teaching and learning. In collaboration with the principal, leadership team, and other stakeholders, the SDT supports the goal of building staff capacity to meet system-wide and local school initiatives to increase student learning. To accomplish this, the SDT wears several hats: coach, change agent, facilitator, and trainer.
One of the many challenges MCPS faced in implementing the SDT initiative was to transform over 200 talented and knowledgeable teachers into a cadre of skilled staff developers who were on the same system-wide page, able to communicate consistent and pervasive messages and practices in their schools and to help teachers implement them. To this end, a team of 12 staff development specialists and their team leader was created; they have developed and delivered an SDT professional development program with three equally important and reinforcing components: training, coaching, and professional community. The professional development program continues to evolve to meet changing system-wide needs and to reflect emerging research on best practices in professional development, professional community, equity and diversity, and instruction.
