Ways to Provide Professional Development on a Limited Budget

Welcome to the Catholic School Leaders Podcast. My name is John Mahalio, the President and Founder of Elementary Advancement Solutions. The goal of this podcast is to connect Catholic school leaders from across the world to help it grow Catholic education. Visit us at elementaryadvancement. com to see how we can help you make advancement seem elementary at your school. Well, how are you today?

I'm guessing that, uh, Summer months are here, getting ready for that school year ahead, getting ready for, everything that comes with that excitement of a new school year.

And, uh, with that comes professional development. Meaningful, professional development at your school is something that makes your school not only a better place for your teachers, but for your students. Now it doesn't have to happen in one day and then go away.

It can be something that is ongoing, something that is Uh, helps your teachers grow and something that, really provides them with a, a, boost of vitamin C to take back to their classrooms and make them better and more efficient and more effective in their jobs. So why don't more schools make this a priority?

Well, we're going to talk about that a little bit today, but before I get into that, just a quick favor, if I can ask you, if you're liking this podcast, if you're enjoying this podcast, if you're gaining something from this podcast, Please be sure to like, subscribe, leave a quick review if you have that opportunity to do that, share it with others.

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So, let's talk about professional development. And, and when I hear professional development, um, usually the things that I hear from schools are why they can't do it. So let's start right there. with the things that I hear most or that I have heard in my time as a school administrator, 20 years, 15 years in a Catholic school of why schools don't do professional development, okay? Tell me if any of these sound familiar.

Number one, we can't afford to do it. Number two, we just don't have the time to do it. Uh, number three, I've just got too many subject areas, there's nothing out there that's a one size fits all, so We're just not going to do it. Number four, teachers just want to be left alone to teach. They don't want any more professional development. It's wasting their time. And number five, well you have to actually leave campus for professional development to be any good.

You know, so we, we can't really do that. And that goes back to usually number one, if we can't afford it, and the cycle continues and your teachers are thirsting for professional development and, and we need to give that to them, but we keep hearing these reasons for why we can't give it to them. So. As a school, I don't care what your financial situation is, your location is, your enrollment is, You can provide your faculty with professional development on an ongoing basis.

And we can dispel a lot of these myths right away, one at a time. So, let's break them down here. Number one, we can't afford to do it. And now I'm going to ask you to look at this another way, and I'm going to state it to you a different way. And that is that you can't afford not to do it as a school. There's an old story by Stephen Covey that goes something like this. The executive said to Uh, him.

What if we provide our team with this growth opportunity and this development and they leave and go work for another company? And Stephen Covey's reply to them was, Well, what if we don't and they stay here? By making your team better, you can improve your school. You're going to enhance your school, which improves your brand as a school. It's going to lead to more growth. It's going to lead to more substantial student achievement.

It's going to lead to a happier faculty that you're going to have because they're experiencing growth as individuals. So how do you afford it? Well, a couple of things you can do. Number one, Your school can claim Title II funds. They're something that your school is entitled to, even as a Catholic school. These funds are yours. You're entitled to them. Public school, private school, doesn't matter. Contact your local county offices if you're not taking advantage of these right now.

And you can usually find the person that's in charge of federal programming. Sometimes it's got to jump through some hoops to do them. Some counties are more willing to work with you than others. But these are your funds. If you need help with these, we'd be happy to speak with you about it, and see if we can help you obtain these funds. But these funds are yours. There's a dollar amount that's assigned, usually based upon enrollment from the previous year, and an allotted amount.

Maybe it might be, you know, twenty, twenty or twenty five dollars, whatever the case might be. But you can spend this money on any sort of professional development as long as it's been approved. And so, work with your county, get to know your, um, person that does the, the, the federal funding and the federal programs in your county. and, and take advantage of those funds. So, that's number one. And that's, that's free money. It's free money that you're entitled to.

other sources, they can come from line items in your budget. certain donors will be willing to give gifts for a specific program. But if you tell them, hey We've got this opportunity, but it costs X amount of dollars. would you be willing to sponsor us to make our school better? I guarantee you there's people out there. that are just willing to do that. And if you just have those conversations and then they know that they're making your school a better place.

So even if you can't afford to pay big bucks for professional development, you can still have it happen at your school, but don't be afraid to invest in your school and invest in your people and invest in yourself. Such an important thing. So, myth number one, debunked.

Myth number two, we just don't have the time to do it. Well, here's what I'm going to say to that. If you don't have the time, make the time. You have faculty meetings, it's a great opportunity. I'm going to guess most schools have faculty meetings at least once a month. This is a great opportunity to provide meaningful professional development to your faculty in smaller chunks. Perfect opportunity to flip the script on your meetings to make them impactful to your team.

Now, as you walk your school, there's no bigger compliment that you can give to one of your teachers than asking them to say, hey, I really like the way you're doing this. Would you consider presenting this to our faculty? Now, some will be like, absolutely, let's do it right now. And I have this 42 page PowerPoint already put together.

Others may be a little more reluctant and may need some convincing, but every one of our schools has talented faculty members right now, right now that are on our current teams. Let them learn from each other and help them to grow together. And we all know that there's some teachers that are eager to understand the buzz of what's going on in Mr. Jones's classroom or Mrs. Smith's classroom or whatever the case might be. Uh, you know, I hear all the kids talking about this.

What, what, what is this person doing? And how can I learn from them? Uh, too many principals, I think, think faculty meetings just need to revolve around the principal being the center of attention. And they give their teachers a lot of information that could be read and could be in an email. You don't have to be the star of the show and the star of every faculty meeting. Trust your people to help each other become better teachers.

Now, beyond faculty meetings, If one thing COVID gave us was to learn that online trainings are something you can participate in without even leaving your school. And there's a lot of opportunities out there for teachers to participate in workshops. Uh, they might be a few hours a day, they might be a day or two, and they require just minimal disruption to the school day. Now, you're, you're paying for a substitute teachers each year. You probably put that in your line item.

Can you allot some of those funds that are for your substitutes to cover professional development needs for teachers to grow and to hone their skills? Now, for our leaders, for you to say, well, I don't have the time to do these things either. Uh, we're going to dispel that myth too. There's things out there. There's. professional groups that you can belong to probably within your own diocese, within your own area.

We offer our mastermind groups for our principals and assistant principals and development directors and recruitment and marketing directors. It's an opportunity that for you to come together, very little time each month to come together with other professionals who are looking to grow and looking to sharpen the saw and iron sharpens iron. It's a great way to get connected with other leaders who have that same interest in improving.

It takes up very minimal time each month, and it's something that's really going to be that, like I said, that shot of vitamin C for you to take forth into your school. I guarantee you, when you are putting yourself first, and you are making yourself a priority to get better, it's going to make your teachers around you more eager to take on professional development opportunities as well. So, That's something you want to explore, elementaryadvancement.

com, you can schedule a time for us, check out the tab there about our mastermind groups and, try to keep those affordable, and again, something you could potentially use title funding for.

So, myth number three, I have too many teachers teaching too many different things. There's really no one size fits all, so why even bother? Now, no arguments here that certain topics are for certain subjects or certain grade levels, but that doesn't mean that you shouldn't find a way to make it happen to make those people better.

It's okay to provide training for a subgroup of teachers or a smaller group and not require everybody to be present, because it makes those that are included feel valued, but those not included feel valued as well because their time wasn't wasted. Now I get it that some skills are essential to have at all grade levels, as well as skills that build on each other from year to year. So how well your third grade team does to know what your fourth grade team is doing can be very valuable.

Just the same as how your second grade team knows what your third grade team doing is very valuable. So, Trying to make those efforts to create a day where each team would get to spend some time with the grade level below and above them or content area together, is so important. Now, I think this is great because it helps them to know what the students in the classrooms above or below are retaining, but also what areas could use some more attention.

That's a great way for these teachers to share strategies that may have worked for students in the previous year. And I guarantee you, when you give teachers these days or half days just to come together and talk and learn from each other, it helps them because they feel truly like professionals and collaborating together is something that's so important. So, it's a simple, yet an effective way to provide your faculty with informal growth opportunities.

Don't be afraid to take advantage of these things.

Myth number four is that teachers just want to teach. They don't want to be bothered by these things. And, and I think back to that old, um, Farside cartoon where the student, uh, raises his hand and he says, Hey, can I be excused because my brain is full? everyone gets a chuckle at this because we know that's not possible. Now, we all know that our brains might seem to be full some days, uh, but no matter how much it may seem like on a hectic day, we all want to learn more.

And here's a little secret, even those teachers who are going to fight you tooth and nail on attending a professional development opportunity, they're going to enjoy it, and they're going to want to improve their craft as a teacher if it's meaningful and something they can use. The key to this, provide your faculty with some professional development that has some substance to it.

So tell everybody, put your phones away for an hour, put your, uh, computers away, those papers that you need to grade, or those lesson plans that you need to do, or the copies that you need to make, they're gonna be there. Just put them away for a little bit and be here and be present. Now, You can bring your faculty together and allow them to grow together. Almost all of them are going to enjoy and benefit from it.

When they know they can count on it being ongoing during the school year, they're going to embrace this, and they're going to begin to look forward to it, and your stronger teachers who are embracing this are going to bring those along who may be a little reluctant. So, don't buy into that myth that your teachers don't want to be bothered with it. They want to get better, but they just want to make sure that it's meaningful and something they can use in their classrooms.

Last myth, you have to leave campus for professional development to be any good. Now, I don't disagree. There's a lot of value in traveling off campus to a professional development or a conference or anything like that. No argument at all for me on that one. Let's look at the good part of that first. The time you spend with colleagues at the event, maybe over a meal or socializing, that's a tremendous upside in your building.

Helps your team, helps them grow together, maybe in a less formal setting. I think that's awesome. But the bad is this. These events can cost a lot of money. Maybe you don't have that in your budget.

Additionally, conference is a great thing to attend, but maybe it lasts two or three days, and then you come back to the school and you're trying to catch up on things, and apply maybe something that you learned immediately in your classroom, but this phone call needs to take place, and this email needs to be returned, and these things need to be graded, or whatever the case might be. in addition to your responsibilities out of school.

And so people with families may not be able to take that time to get away to a conference that requires a great deal of traveling or to being away from home for a couple of days. But here's the good news. With some creativity, maximizing the resources that you have in your building, you can help your teachers grow in their craft as Catholic school educators.

So let's look at the things you can do here over the first 30, 60, 90 days all throughout the school year. to grow your school's culture in the areas of professional development. So, look at the times when your teams are going to be together.

If you don't already have a calendar of when your faculty meetings are going to be for the rest of the year, for the upcoming year, I would put this together to tell your teachers at the beginning of the year, when they come back, hey, Here's every faculty meeting that we're going to have this year.

If you're going to have a day where committees are going to meet, if you're going to have a day where you're going to allow subject matters to come together, but put those dates on the calendar now for people to know when your faculty meetings are going to be. Uh, include any time commitments, uh, the trainings are going to be. If you say something's going to be 60 minutes, make sure it's 60 minutes.

There's nothing that's going to frustrate somebody more than when you tell somebody it's only going to last 60 minutes and it lasts for 90. Even if it lasts for 65 minutes, people will give you the stink eye. So, if you tell someone they're gonna have three hours to, to complete something, don't want to cut them off. You want to make sure that, you know, Hey, you're gonna have three hours to do this. We're gonna give you this three hours to do this. Maybe we'll get you subbed throughout the day.

just make sure that you're adhering and you're respecting those time constraints that you've given them. You want to identify the spaces that you might need to provide any sort of training.

Now, you may have a small conference room, you might have a big cafeteria, you might have a big library, but you're going to want to make sure that if you're going to do something of this nature, that you have those things, uh, booked and reserved to make sure that you don't have double booking or you don't have, uh, maybe a parish meeting that's taking place in that same area Because you didn't decide to, tell somebody that this was happening.

So, um, looking at opportunities and looking at where you can have those meetings or those professional development opportunities is a big thing. Now, I mentioned before about making everybody come to something or just certain people. Decide who needs to be in what pieces of training ahead of time. If it's a full faculty workshop, that's great. If it's only going to be certain teachers, let them know.

And that might sound obvious, but when you tell them why they need to be there and who needs to be there, and you want to make sure that you're providing those same opportunities for everybody, if you just pick the same small group of people every time, you're going to create resentment from others, and the group always having to attend is feeling like they're either not doing a good job, or they're being picked on, or whatever the case might be.

Finding those opportunities to decide who needs to be there, but also balancing it out so that everybody gets to participate in something is, is really important. Now, deciding the focus or the theme that you want your development to be on in the trainings is, is important as well. what does that success look like? Where do you need them to be at the end of the training? What are you hoping for? What's going to be the, the, the case if they're successful with that?

Um, what's it going to look like at the halfway mark of that if, if success is happening? Who's the key players that are going to help you achieve these goals and, and how are they going to contribute? But just looking at these things with intentionality is so important. We went back and started the things with, with cost. you do need to look at what costs are associated with any sort of development opportunities you're going to provide.

always providing snacks or drinks or bottled water or whatever the case might be. Sometimes you can get, Parents to donate something, cookies, or whatever the case might be in advance is always a winner. Uh, food goes a long way, especially if it's a day that's maybe gonna be a longer training or retreat kind of day or things like that. Communicating the why! behind what you're doing is really, really important with your team.

I know it's going to sound really overly simplified, but if your group knows the benefits and how it's going to help them in the classrooms, they're a lot more likely to get behind it. So making sure that you're telling them why we're doing something and what it is that you're hoping to accomplish and why it's so important to them is really going to be a big feather in your cap.

Give your teachers that you plan to provide the training to, or the workshop time to, as much time to prepare as possible. Checking in with them, making sure that they're on track to meet your expectations, give them that confidence that they need. Uh, but letting them know, nobody likes surprises and surprising them five minutes before training to tell them that they've got to spend the next three hours doing something not going to be well received by anybody.

Uh, so make sure that you're, you're giving them a heads up. And last thing I would say when it comes to professional development, oftentimes we do professional development and we don't tell anybody about it. Let your parents and your community members know what it is you're doing. When you bring your groups together, let them know that, you know, Mr. Jones or Mrs. Smith provided training on topic ABC for your entire faculty at the meeting after school today.

Put that on social media and watch how much attention you get. Communication of this promotes your teachers, it emphasizes growth, and it lets parents know what's happening at your faculty meetings, or maybe when a teacher is out of the classroom for a day. So communicate those things and convey those, that information to your parents. It's going to give your parents a lot more confidence in what's happening at your school as well.

Now, there was once a quote by Abraham Lincoln who said, Give me six hours to chop down a tree, and I'm going to spend the first four hours sharpening that axe. No matter who we are or what we do in life, we can continually improve things and get better. So look for ways, I hope we've dispelled some of the myths that may be associated with professional development in our world of education.

if we can be of help to you and we can support your school in your professional development, like I said, through our masterminds, through our coaches, executive coaching, uh, whatever the case might be. I'd love to sit down with you and hear more about what your goals are at the school and ways to help you provide professional development to your faculty in a meaningful way. Um, reach out to us at elementaryadvancement. com. Schedule a time with us.

Let's do a virtual cup of coffee, hear more about what's happening at your school and how we can help advance Catholic education forward at your school.