Iowa teachers get weekly professional development

Every Monday afternoon, Sioux City (Iowa) Community School students get an early out for the day while their teachers go back to class.

“Our teachers have had some form of professional development for years,” said the district’s special education and professional development coordinator Janet Rohmiller, “but it’s only been in the past two years that we've been doing it on a weekly basis.”

Rohmiller said these weekly sessions allow educators to learn successful teaching techniques from proven experts. “In the past, we’d call professional development sessions ‘sit and get it.’ The sessions would be scheduled erratically and the teachers would try their best to absorb what they’re listening to,” she said. “You sat through a lecture and hoped you got the gist of it.” Read the article in The Sioux City Journal online.