More than “just” a teacher – that was the message Dr. Ric Frataccia, Superintendent, sent his team last week. Over 40 administrators and teachers took part in a training seminar known as, DQST, District Quality Schools Teams. The professionals who participated engaged in discussion about what quality teaching means, and how a school district knows what quality looks like within itself.
Dr. Frataccia walked the team through some work by Marzano, What Works in Schools, and introduced the educators to Shyamalan, I Got Schooled. Dr. Frataccia’s eager class of students listened intently as he spoke about how these and other works in the field of education should become a part of their regular reading as professionals. “Home and Garden is good, but that is not what you should be reading,” said Dr. Frataccia as the team of professional educators nodded knowingly with a laugh.
Rounding out the full day of teaching and learning, Dr. Frataccia patiently and skillfully walked the team through regression analysis - a statistical process for estimating the relationships among variables. Dr. Frataccia was stressing to his team that not only do they need to dig more deeply into the data, but that the data has to support what is happening for children in the classrooms.
Like the great teacher and leader he is, Dr. Frataccia did not let his team of professionals leave without an assignment, and the promise of another session in a few weeks. The team will be taking their individual school data and, using regression analysis, will come back to the next session ready to share what they have learned from their data.
The real message taken away from the day was simple, teachers are not “just” teachers. Teachers have a profound and lasting impact on hundreds, if not thousands, of lives. So, the next time you hear a teacher say, “I just teach 1st grade,” or “I am just the principal at school X,” please remind them that what they are changing lives, giving hope, building dreams, and that there is no “just” about the important and hard work they do.
Submitted by: Mrs. Julie Lauck, Assistant Superintendent Valparaiso Community Schools