Solana Beach School District to receive state funds for staff development

With a one-time grant from the state, Solana Beach School District will soon be able to further fund the professional development of administrators, teachers and staff.

Known as Educator Effectiveness Funds, the one-time funding source aims to promote educator quality and effectiveness in an effort to increase student success.

The district will receive a little more than $310,000 that can help support beginning administrator and teacher support and mentoring; professional development, coaching and support services for teachers needing improvement or additional support; professional development for administrators, teachers and paraprofessionals that is aligned to the state content standards; and the promotion of educator quality and effectiveness.

During the June 9 school board meeting, district staff presented a plan detailing how the funds will be spent. According to the plan, the funds will help provide professional development to support administrators, teachers and paraprofessionals in high-quality instruction in English language arts, writing and mathematics. Professional development will employ interactive sessions by subject matter experts, job-embedded training and coaching, task force participation, and grade level or content-specific committee work, according to the plan.

“We’re required to develop a plan, present the plan at a public meeting and bring the plan back for adoption at a subsequent meeting,” Superintendent Terry Decker explained.

The district offers professional develop for administrators, teachers and staff every summer. About 96 percent of the district’s teaching staff attend the August professional development days, said Sabrina Lee, the district’s assistant superintendent of instructional services.

“We’re actually going to be up this year based off of the survey that we submitted so far,” Lee said. Paraprofessionals — or classified staff — participation is also expected to increase, she said.

The state funds will help support a total of four days of professional development or two days for the next two years.

The funds must be used during the 2016-17 or 2017-18 fiscal years. The district is required to report detailed information to the California Department of Education regarding its expenditures on or before July 1, 2018.

The plan will come back for a second reading at the board’s next meeting before it is adopted.