Penn Literacy Network

Penn Literacy Network Is a Key Partner in a 3-year HS Professional Development Initiative with Annenberg and the PA Department of Education

During the spring of 2005, Penn Literacy Network (PLN) was awarded a grant to participate as a partner in the Pennsylvania High School Coaching Initiative (PAHSCI). This grant, supported by the Pennsylvania Department of Education (PDE), seeks to improve teaching and learning at the secondary level by placing one literacy and one math coach for every 600 students in selected high schools across the Commonwealth. Participating districts include: Albert Gallatin, Burgettstown, Charleroi, Southeastern Green, McGuffy, Uniontown, Erie, Harrisburg, Hazleton, Lancaster, Philadelphia, Reading, Scranton, Bellwood Antis, and Keystone Central. Coaches at these sites facilitate in-class coaching and modeling, peer collaboration and teacher training, and are supported through an intensive professional development system. In addition to Penn Literacy Network, PDE is partnering with Foundations, Inc., Research for Action, and the Philadelphia Foundation to support this initiative.

Penn Literacy Network will provide three years of comprehensive professional development services to coaches, administrators, and teachers within the selected districts through (1) yearly, centralized summer continuing education coursework and (2) school-year regionalized continuing education coursework within participating districts. The purpose of the yearly summer Centralized Course sessions is to help districts design long-term plans to sustain the framework of this initiative beyond the three years of the partnership. Leadership teams (which may include superintendents, school principals, department heads, curriculum coordinators, and IU personnel) and coaches from all districts will use the yearly summer training not only to gain exposure to PLN learning philosophies and teaching strategies, develop implementation plans, lesson plans, and curriculum back-mapping plans but also to design their local staff development endeavors over the three years of the initiative and beyond. District leaders will actively participate in this program with coaches and teachers because PLN recognizes the value of leadership support in such an initiative. PLN wants leadership teams and districts to have as much internal support and exposure to PLN theories and philosophies as possible.

PLN will also offer local professional development continuing education/credit-bearing courses to clusters of these districts based on their regional proximity to each other (at local Intermediate Units, for instance or within the participating districts) during the school-year. These regionalized continuing education courses will be taught by PLN faculty to approximately 40 participants per course. The purpose of this variation is to ensure the fidelity of PLN professional development, while also allowing district leadership teams to observe PLN courses and develop their own classroom/curriculum/school-wide instructional plans based on PLN concepts and frameworks. In years two and three, upper level PLN courses will be offered in these regions, including focus on curriculum backmapping and curriculum problem-solving. District leadership teams will be expected to replicate aspects of the PLN courses for non-course participants in the form of on-site, non-credit workshops during school in-service time. PLN will work to establish local facilitators in order to build capacity for implementation of PLN frameworks and to support the particular needs of each district, with the potential of ongoing support for sustainability past year three.

During the first year of the Pennsylvania High School Coaching Initiative alone, Penn Literacy Network serviced over 400 educators across the Commonwealth. Nearly 100 coaches and leadership team members received University of Pennsylvania continuing education credit for the 2005 summer Centralized Course, not to mention an additional 100 plus participants that attended portions of the course. Additionally, PLN facilitators conducted eight credit-bearing, school-year Regional Courses for over 250 participating district teachers. In years two and three of the initiative, PLN will continue to provide advanced levels of professional development for those educators who participated in the initial courses. PLN facilitators will also continue to service new cohorts of teachers in the participating districts during the remaining two years.

In addition to the Pennsylvania High School Coaching Initiative, Penn Literacy Network continues to provide on-site credit bearing or non-credit bearing seminars, workshops, and Mentoring programs in the areas of reading, writing, mathematics, science and technology to districts across the tri-state area. New courses being offered by PLN include Literacy Study Group, Addressing the Needs of English Language Learners, and Inquiry into Student Learning to Inform Practice. Penn Literacy Network is working toward expanding services nationally and internationally, including programs in Ireland, New York and Florida. PLN recently celebrated its 25th anniversary, and has serviced nearly 30,000 Pre K – 12 educators since its founding in 1981 by Dr. Morton Botel.

This article was written by Gina Calzaferri, PLN Project Manager for the PAHSCI.