This year we are partnering with our experts at NKCES to bring a variety of ongoing, sustained, personalized and reflective opportunities for professional learning. 

Participants in this format will choose one of the options below and participate as a community of learners throughout the course of the year.  Each cadre will open up with a training in the afternoon on the August 11 District PD Day, and will meet periodically through the rest of the year. 

If you would like to propose your own cadre to lead, scroll down to the bottom for the proposal form.

District Lead: Barbara Carrasquel, Silvia McClamrock, Heather Turner, Julie Dashley

Strategic Plan:  Individual Student Growth

"The study of language usually focuses on Spanish and other World Languages while separating English being taught to speakers of other languages. However, the two fields are slowly merging. Right now, our approach as a district is ahead of many others but it is still lacking. At the elementary level, the Spanish and English teachers are lucky to have strong backgrounds in language acquisition. There is an opportunity for us to be forward thinking and learn from best practices in teaching Spanish, as exemplified in “The Big Book of Comprehensible Input,” and teaching English, as shown in “Making Content Comprehensible for English Learners.” This cadre provides the Fort Thomas School District a unique opportunity to further explore the national trends of language acquisition as it applies to all languages; and in the process foster comprehensible and inclusive instructional strategies that benefit students no matter their native language or what languages they have acquired or continue to acquire. 

As Bryce Hedstrom states in “The Big CI Book”, we will base our professional development on, “Strategies that simplify and make comprehensible input instruction work for you”. After this cadre study, we will be able to practice these successful CI strategies including stories, in our classrooms, with confidence. Our goal is to read and process his advice together and immediately implement it and then reflect on our experiences together for our next meeting. This is the beauty of the cadre continuing throughout the year instead of in a large chunk at the beginning and the end. 

To be honest, we are all excited about working together again and are all passionate about Comprehensible Input, creation and student growth! We truly want our programs to continuously improve. During this cadre, we will work together to learn and create resources that will best serve our students.

Dates 

August 9 - 3 hours

The tentative dates we would get together would  the following: 

September 2024 (1 hour)

October 2024 (1 hour)

November 2024 (1 hour) 

January 2025 (1 hour)

February 2025 (1 hour)

March 2025 (1 hour) 

District Leads: Stacey Behrensmeyer and Nina Kearns

Strategic Plan:  Student Experiences and Opportunities, Individual Student Growth, Positive and Engaged Culture, Achievement, Portrait of a Graduate

The AP Teacher Cadre is a collaboration of AP teachers across the curriculum to improve the AP course offerings and to provide the most meaningful AP experience for all students.

By having time to collaborate and share, AP teachers in all content areas will be able to learn about new resources, teaching techniques, and best practices from our colleagues. Upon implementation of these ideas, teachers will be able to share successes and challenges with each other during our regular monthly meetings. The hope is that we will all be able to work collaboratively to create shared experiences, shared resources, shared activities, and shared success. Regular dedicated time for collaboration and reflection will be vital to the success of this cadre.

Dates and Topics

August 11

09/11/2023: Analysis of homework and grading policy, test correction/reflection opportunities, share of best practices

10/09/2023: Using data to drive instruction and track student progress, explore options for remediation, evaluate use of AP Classroom

11/06/2023: Discuss meaningful midterm exams, reflect on pacing and planning for the rest of the year

01/08/2024: Reflect on midterm exam and student progress, report of homework, test correction policy, plan for second semester

02/12/2024: Continue to work on shared resources and best practices

03/11/2024: Design and implement a common practice for AP test preparation and mock exams

District Lead: Brian Robinson

Strategic Plan:  Positive and Engaged Culture

This interactive cadre is intended for those interested in making cross-district connections with colleagues (any certified role) and expanding voice by reflecting on and discussing a variety of leadership topics that impact district-wide decisions.  The cadre will include a minimum of 10 participants.   Topics will be determined by consensus of the cadre at the first meeting but could include content such as; establishing a positive and engaged culture, making finance decisions, professional learning, district-wide decision making, selecting personnel, etc. Each session will include an article discussion pertaining to the topic, an overview from Brian Robinson (or team) reviewing how FTIS currently approaches the topic, and a case study discussion related to the topic allowing the cadre to share a multitude of perspectives and building level voice.  This cadre is intended for those hoping to build leadership capacity in a number of roles and participants will be encouraged to apply talents during the year in one of any number of district wide committees or action teams.  For additional questions please reach out to Brian Robinson via email. 

Dates 

1.5 hours August 11 and 1.5 hours beginning at 3:30 September 18, October 16, November 13, January 15, February 19, and March 19

District Lead: Sommer Rosa

Strategic Plan: Individual Student Growth, Achievement

This cadre will begin with a focus on instruction in the completion of new special education documents on Infinite Campus. There will also be a review of procedures, identification of common paperwork errors, discussion around legal updates, scenarios and cases from the field, review of records, time for colleague collaboration and alignment.

The cadre is appropriate for all district special education staff, including SLP’s, OT and preschool.

Dates

August 9

TBD

Each cohort group (K-5, SPED, Reading specialists) will engage in professional learning over two years and cover eight professional learning units on topics essential for literacy instruction, including phonemic awareness, phonics, vocabulary, comprehension, writing and assessment. Each unit will include asynchronous, self-paced study and six hours of facilitator-led learning. Participants must commit to completing the full two-year course and will devote approximately an hour each week plus six hours for each unit for live training to complete the program. 

Teachers will receive 4 sub days to work with their learning group for each facilitator-led training + 9 hours of District Level PD

Teachers who participated in Phase 2, will continue in their same cadres. 

Registration for Phase 3 will open May 1 - click here for information