The Southeast Coalition of Essential Schools Center Provides Professional Development Through Networking
Kathleen Harris
The Southeastern Coalition of Essential Schools Center, a partner of the Florida School Choice Resource Center at Nova Southeastern University in Tampa, has held a number of professional development events aimed at strengthening the Smaller Learning Communities programs and Career Academies. Four charter schools districts who currently have large high schools implementing career academies or small schools have come together to form this center. Pinellas, Hillsborough, Manatee and Sarasota, as charter members of this center, are providing support through on going professional development for their high schools.
These professional development activities are geared at creating a peer to peer network of educators doing similar work. A number of networking session and critical conversations have been held at Nova Southeastern University’s Tampa location. These session have provided the venue for sharing promising practices, mutual concerns and resources. All those involved reported positive gains at their school sites from these activities.
Since academies are recognized as a school choice option, the issues of equity in recruitment, enrollment and marketing are issues frequently discussed at these networking activities. The practice of choosing students based on interest, not previous achievement scores, has been endorsed by the all the SCES members.
The challenge remains to identify the true and abiding interests of the learners and then enroll them in the appropriate programs. An upcoming event will target the counselors at these high schools as they explore avenues of assessment and advisement that can improve placement practices. If career or personal interests become the focus of instruction and community based experiences within these emerging high school programs, proper student placement is critical. With the new state requirement for all high school students to declare majors and minor, these issues have become even more pressing.
The SCES is currently exploring avenues to fund on-going support for the schools in these districts showing progress but needing support beyond the USDOE Small Learning Communities Grants. For further information about SCES events and membership log on to http://www.southeastces.org
Submitted by Kathleen Harris
Administrator of North and Center FSCRC and
Board President of SCES