Southeast Polk Professional Learning

This week's blog will share some changes in procedure for professional learning participation.  At Southeast Polk, we value ongoing learning.  We have been very fortunate to participate in high quality experiences led by local, state, and national experts. Our commitment is to continue with this model with some changes.  We have traditionally attended certain state conferences held during the school year on a yearly basis. We will be changing this to an every other year rotation model.  The purposes for these changes are listed below:

• To maximize the time the lead teacher is with their students. We have outstanding teachers at Southeast Polk, and we want our students to have access to your time and talents as much as possible.
• To decrease the amount of time without a full roster of teachers.  Securing substitute teachers across the state of Iowa has been a challenge over the past few years, and there were some days last year when we were not able to cover all positions.
• To manage the budget so as to continue professional learning in the future.  State funding is not looking as promising as we had hoped for the next few years.  We want to manage our funds in a way that will allow us to sustain our commitment to professional learning over the next several years.

We appreciate your dedication to ongoing learning and your willingness to share your expertise with other teachers at Southeast Polk.  This new plan will further benefit our students and allow us to continue our commitment to professional learning for years to come.