Learn how Phoenix Country Day School shifted their professional development model from an evaluation system to a 3 year Growth and Renewal Cycle by leveraging collaboration, myFolio, and teacher strengths.
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(transcript edited for clarity)
KAREN: Hi, I'm Karen Coffelt. I am the director of teaching and learning at Antilles School on St. Thomas in the U.S. Virgin Islands and I've been part of Folio for quite a while now. Professional development has to be on the schedule and the teachers have to be given time in a meeting or professional development or what you want them to do is not going to get done.
MELISSA: Curtis and Kelli have agreed to share their experiences at Phoenix Country Day School. We’ll have time to talk about any questions related to what they've shared and provide some time for reflection and conversation.
KELLI: Thanks Melissa. So we've been given the topic of the balancing act which is prioritizing myFolio in a hectic role. Curtis and I have the privilege of working together. I am one of the faculty members and he is our division head so we're definitely coming into this with two different perspectives and viewpoints which is very important in working in a school setting.
I'm a teacher, but I'm also the myFolio admin at our school. I have that role because I help head up a group called the Teaching Advocacy Group which is essentially a group of master teachers. Our job at the school is to dream a little bit in terms of what teachers can do and how we can do it better at PCDS and also implement as many systems as we can that will help us be the best that we can be. Folio became a part of that in 2018 when we joined.
CURTIS: I have been Head of Lower School at Phoenix Country Day since 2020, so I'm in my fifth year at this school and in this role. I've been working closely with Kelli as we implemented and engineered our growth and renewal program.
KELLI: A huge part of the balancing act is we’ve shifted our focus from an evaluation system to the value being in growth and renewal. We developed a framework using myFolio as the tool to keep the systems accountable and us all using the same software and able to communicate the same messages throughout the expectations of the framework.
We launched that last year after a few years of development and it truly was a separation of evaluation that put the focus on growth and renewal. The system that we created was developed by faculty from our Teaching Advocacy Group (TAG) which is completely composed of teachers from all the different divisions.
There was a huge shift in our culture in the communication of that message. This is a visual of how we as a school collaborate together and make connections.
One aspect of PCDS that we wanted to hang on to is that we have a faculty that really enjoys being together and talking to each other. We respect and value the work that we do and wanted to keep that at the forefront in what we did.
As a teacher, using myFolio within our growth and renewal process does these things:
Admin have a very hectic role and teachers really appreciate feedback, they just don't always get it regularly due to the time constraints of a single person.
| myFolio allows us to share things on the platform that we want and we need our heads to see. So if a peer is observing us and they create an observation note, Curtis gets to see that and he gets to comment on that. He's directly connected to what we're [teachers] are doing even though he is not physically in the room. |
We challenge ourselves. We try really hard as a faculty to encourage growth-related goals - goals that take risks and goals that aren't always successful. We have communicated as a school that that is the type of innovation and experimentation that we value here. It's our second year into our new growth and renewal process and our teachers are loving it.
“Prior to PCDS, being observed never felt purposeful. What I like about this Growth and Renewal process is that it's tied to meaningful goals that I care about for my growth and the growth of the students.”
-PCDS teacher
CURTIS: From an administration standpoint I really don't look at myFolio as a burden. Things that are efficient, effective and meaningful aren't burdens or extra. And so our growth and renewal program energizes teachers to do things that help them stretch beyond their comfort zone.
That gives the teachers a lot of choice and latitude and makes it really fun for me to be able to support them and see them actively in the classroom - learning, growing, stretching, reaching and coming alongside to support them rather than ‘evaluate’ them.
[Our growth and renewal process] divided up so I [as division head] see all of the teachers once every three years. There’s a third of the faculty I work with intensively and that's always teachers that are new to PCDS. Any new to PCDS teachers are automatically in that cycle and I need to be in their classrooms observing anyway.
So again, it's not a burden, it's not an extra - it's built into the structure of myFolio. For me to do it every year I just feel like I'm saying the same things like, “yeah yeah that was really good and these are some things for you to consider.”
Having this rotation gives [teachers] different lenses and different feedback along a different kind of hierarchical structure. We're not really in a hierarchy but I can't divorce myself from the position. When the supervisor comes in there's always that sense of latent evaluation present. But [teachers are] able to cycle through other people who are truly peer observers.
The Teaching Advocacy Group [master teachers] are doing observations for another third of the faculty. It is fantastic because [experienced teachers] are able to very clearly describe what they're seeing in the classrooms in a way that I can just close my eyes and picture exactly what is taking place. They're describing a lesson with a group of students and teachers that I know and offering really great feedback - probably better feedback than I would be able to offer myself - and then I'm able to comment on that.
Rather than spending three hours in a pre-meeting, observation, and post-observation conversation, in about 15 minutes I'm able to read the comments and add on with, “oh that sounds like such a great lesson! Kelli's offered some really great suggestions here. I look forward to hearing more about X, Y, and Z.”
It's a way to show the value of being seen and heard even though I was never in the classroom. I was able to see what was taking place and [the teacher is] hearing from me and knows that I'm paying attention and contributing to the conversation in a way that is really efficient and effective.
For the balancing act, I think it's a matter of seeing the usefulness and efficiency of [myFolio]. It is not something at all that I'm adding on - it's actually making my life easier in a lot of different ways.
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We also use Spotlights. At the beginning of every faculty meeting we spend three minutes on Folio. We start promptly at 3:30 so at 3:33 we transition. [Faculty] either write a Spotlight, contribute to the Community Feed, or do a Mindful Minute. I populate those spotlights in our faculty newsletter for general consumption. It's a way to magnify that spotlight beyond the individual person that's receiving the recognition. This makes it easier for me because it is teachers sharing with teachers things that they appreciate. I’m just capturing and magnifying it to a broader audience. |
“As a supervisor, I glean so much from the comments. For example, I can read what teachers are passionate about and/or struggling with and offer feedback so that, along with my routine classroom pop-ins, I'm able to have a great pulse on our community.”
-PCDS Division Head
KELLI: When we were creating this framework, a huge ask was a commitment specifically from our heads. We have three heads - lower school, middle school, and upper school because we're pre-k through 12. Asking for full admin buy-in to really commit to using myFolio consistently and as a connection piece, making sure the messages were very clear and consistent - essentially everything you would be asking the teacher to do in a classroom. We were making sure that as the Teaching Advocacy Group was launching the growth renewal framework that we had as much admin buy-in as we did teacher buy-in.
Live Q and A
KELLI: We provide as much time as possible scheduled during division meetings [for teachers to] catch up on growth and renewal work or have conversations. We have those work periods scheduled throughout the year within [regular] meeting times so that we are giving teachers that time.
CURTIS: Those are established the spring before and so they're already placeholders across every division. It's about five or six division meetings. Not all of them are the full time - sometimes we just need 20 minutes.
With those slotted prior to the beginning of the year, each division then fills in around that knowing that those are rocks in our faculty meetings for the year.
MELISSA: That pre-planning makes it like this is where we're going to lock in our time and you have to work around it. Doing it ahead of time also shows that it's a priority to you.
CURTIS: Doing it six or seven months ahead of time means that Kelli Newsome isn’t in charge and involved.
KELLI: With the planning ahead, we have an overview document with the [entire growth and renewal schedule] that is shared with faculty so they know when that's happening too.
KELLI: We have a goal meeting set at the beginning of the year during a division meeting where teachers meet with each other, write their goal meeting note for themselves, and then the division head comments.
There's also a set division meeting time where teachers have the opportunity to meet and chat and then write their own year end summary note. Same for the mid cycle. So the burden of the note writing is put on the owner of the note and who it’s about, not necessarily admin writing that note for the faculty.
KAREN: I like that. It just sounds like it's so much more efficient than the division heads trying to hold goal meetings, observe, and write notes with everybody because they don't have time to get to anything else.
KELLI: We know that we're getting what's left. The divided attention, it's hard. We understand that.
MELISSA: It also provides for really good conversation among colleagues that are interacting with students on an everyday basis, teacher to teacher. I can tell just by listening to Curtis that he walks the walk and talks the talk in terms of putting the comments in there.
Being a former teacher, if I was able to sit down with Kelli as a teacher and have that conversation around my goals, we get the goal meeting note in there. Then Curtis is able to provide written support or advice that is more valuable to me than if Curtis and I sat down for a meeting where I can tell he's so distracted and so worried about what he has going next that it's scripted out. It doesn't feel as meaningful.
KAREN: And I like that everybody is still getting something. I know other schools that do cycles where they only have end of year meetings every three years, but the teachers that aren't having that meeting aren't getting anything. The way that you are doing it, every single teacher is getting comments and feedback from somebody.
KELLI: Exactly.
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MELISSA: Oftentimes I get asked about ways that we can make myFolio part of our day to day life so it doesn't feel like it is just another thing. Curtis mentioned the Spotlights, Community Feed, and Mindful Minute. Kelli talked about peer observations and you can share resources on the site. The other thing that I always recommend to folks to think about is when you're creating your themes in myFolio, create those themes to align to the type of growth that you are wanting to see happen at the school level. That way when teachers write their goals, what they are striving to improve upon will ultimately improve the school and the direction that it's wanting to go. We also have many of our schools using workspaces. |
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KAREN: I'm sorry, what was the first one? Electronic vita, what is that? MELISSA: When you have pushback from teachers about why do I fill out my profile? Why am I putting all this information in there? People can use myFolio as an electronic vita. So let's say you put in all of your education, any professional growth opportunities that you've done, things like that. And let's say they were at Phoenix Country Day School this year, but their spouse got a job offer in the Virgin Islands and they're going to work with you next year, Karen. They can reach out to us and we can give them their portfolio with all of their information from myFolio to take with them so they don't lose it. By encouraging teachers to use [myFolio] as their source of truth, teachers will put more effort into putting their profile information in there. KAREN: I did not know that. |
MELISSA: It's a great thing. We have a session coming up with Fordham Prep. They're going to be doing a case study on how they shifted from evaluation to growth that was faculty driven and faculty inspired. Meghan Cureton was the consultant that worked with them along this journey.
She'll be sharing some of the activities they did and then we'll be talking a lot about how they're leveraging myFolio as a new member this year to do exactly what Curtis mentioned - make their life more efficient.
Thank you to everyone who took the time to join in person but especially to Curtis and Kelli for sharing your story, answering questions, and providing ideas to others about how we might empower teachers to be actively involved in their growth process in a balanced way.
And with that, enjoy the rest of the week. Thank you both very much.
KAREN: Thank you, Curtis. Thank you Kelli. That was great.
Click here to access the session slide deck.