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Are teachers really apathetic when it comes to professional learning?

If you survey school districts and ask them what is their biggest challenge in professional learning, sooner or later (and probably sooner) you’re almost certainly going to hear something like the following:

“We struggle with teacher apathy when it comes to professional learning.”
“Teachers don’t like to take professional development.”
“We have to twist their arms to get them to attend.”

This extends beyond education — when it comes to professional development, many industries across corporate America have the same impression of their employees.

Perception vs. Reality

This widespread perception — that because workers don’t leap at every chance to engage in professional learning, they must be disengaged — is damaging. It leads to tension between supervisors and employees, it undermines employee trust. And the worst thing about it? It’s simply untrue. This perception persists because we operate with faulty expectations

This widespread perception that workers are disengaged is damaging. And the worst thing about it? It’s simply untrue.

It’s no secret that as we grow up, leave college, perhaps get married, have kids, pursue careers, purchase houses and care for families, time becomes scarce. Adults spend so much of our lives working, either at full-time jobs or simply taking care of all of life’s other responsibilities. It costs us to spend time on learning, work-related or otherwise. That we’re willing to pay that cost to learn something new — like how to make a new recipe, do home repairs or swaddle a baby — shows that we’re hardly apathetic. It’s a matter of motivation.

Motivation is an enormous factor in how effective professional learning will be.

Setting a realistic bar

Your teachers are educators. In a myriad of reasons why they entered this profession, “I care about students” probably ranks near the top. Helping your teachers succeed in this goal while setting realistic demands on their time is key. As with elsewhere in education, districts and teachers engaged in highly effective professional learning have found it’s helpful to map backward from desired outcomes.

Outcome #1, of course, is student growth. Although specific teacher capabilities may not have a 1:1 causal relationship with student achievement, when teachers perform at a high level it does set the stage for student achievement. It makes sense to focus the desired outcomes of professional learning on teachers developing specific capabilities that will support student growth.

No doubt your district has goals as well, and in addition to those outcomes you have in mind, also remember that teachers desire certain “outcomes” such as those required for recertification. They’ll be motivated to engage in professional learning when it helps them complete those requirements. Be sure to create a professional learning plan that sets a realistic, achievable bar for how much time is needed and meets both the district’s and teachers’ desired outcomes — recertification, support in areas of identified need, choice and flexibility.

The next time you’re tempted to view your teachers as apathetic, step back for a moment. Consider the demands on their time, and how you can structure learning that’s not only realistic, but that also helps your educators along in their own journey. Challenges in professional learning are far more often an issue of alignment, not apathy.

Supporting Your Support Staff

Have We Forgotten Our Non-Instructional Staff?

In education, much of the focus is on teachers, as it should be — but it’s important to give credit to the classified staff that keep all of our schools running. Custodians keep the school buildings clean and healthy. HVAC employees ensure that children are comfortable and breathing clean air. Cafeteria staff keep students well-fed, so that learning isn’t interrupted by a rumbly tummy. Secretaries serve on the front lines, helping parents and administrators alike.

All of these individuals play an instrumental role in student growth — after all, a sick, cold or hungry student is not learning effectively. That’s why it’s so important to support classified staff in their work and show respect for what they do. Providing them with professional development can go a long way in making them feel valued and engaged — which, in turn, reduces turnover.

Read on and watch the videos to see how other districts are supporting this important group of people!

The Difference Professional Development Can Make

 

Meriden Public Schools provides all of their staff members with training opportunities to develop their talents and help them succeed. For example, they provide clerical staff members with training to help them manage their workload and deal with difficult people. As a result, their clerical staff are more engaged in their work, and more equipped to graciously welcome every visitor.

They have also provided professional development for their custodians, to give them leadership skills. Then, when additional positions open up, the district knows that they already have people with the skills needed to lead a team.

“The most important thing about talent development is that all employees need to feel valued, they need to be respected and their voices need to matter. It’s not just the training that matters. It’s that we’re investing in them as key members of our team. And the more we invest in them, the more payback the school system gets, and the more productive our operations are.” – Mark Benigni, Meriden Public Schools

Providing classified staff with professional development opportunities can mean developing more than just their skills at their current position. Lori Hudson, a district recruiter for Indian River School District, once hired a new employee to serve as a paraprofessional for students who had just arrived in the country. Now, that employee is going back to school to become a teacher of English language learners. For the district, that’s a win: they have a candidate for a hard-to-fill position — and they already know how she performs in the classroom.

Similarly, the president of the National Educational Association, Lily Eskelsen García, proudly began her career in a school cafeteria before becoming an aide to a special education teacher, then a teacher after obtaining her degree.

So invest in your staff: you never know where your next great teacher will come from.

How To: Practical Ways to Offer PD for Classified Staff

Providing professional development to your classified staff is, unquestionably, a win-win for both the employee and the district. But as we all know, time is always in short supply in a school district. Luckily, there are always creative ways to offer training to your classified staff without taking away from the work that needs to be done.

Mentoring
Many schools have found that mentoring programs for new or struggling teachers can reduce turnover. So why not create a mentoring program for non-certified employees? A mentor can provide individualized support, encourage learning and improve performance.

Learning Lunches
Learning lunches are an opportunity to sit down with your classified staff and go over training topics that can be covered in a relatively short amount of time. The face-to-face contact is great for discussions and questions, and eating as a group can foster a sense of community.

Online Learning
With the accessibility of the internet, you no longer have to gather your staff members together in one location for professional learning. Giving employees access to online training means that they can work at their own pace and on their own time. First, though, make sure all of your employees have Internet access. If they don’t have their own computer and Internet access at home, consider allowing them to use a district computer (such as in a school computer lab) when they’re off the clock.

In Conclusion: Every Employee Matters

People’s impressions of your district are often directly tied to the relationships they form with non-certified staff. Offering professional development to all of your employees by helping them become more skillful — with both technical and soft skills — can only help your district.

What other ideas do you have for supporting your classified staff? Share and comment on social media!

Retain First-Rate Substitute Teachers with Rewards and Recognition

You’re well aware that people choose to be teachers for reasons far beyond the compensation package.  People choose to teach because they care about students, are passionate about a subject area, and want to use their gifts and skills for the public good. For teachers like this, an identity as an educator means everything.

The same is true for people who make excellent substitute teachers.

So if your district has a shortage of substitutes, ask the question: are you viewing your substitutes as educators or babysitters? If it’s the latter, it’s worth making the effort to structure the job so that people who identify as educators will be drawn to it. Here are a few ideas:

Recognize the Role Substitutes Play in Education.

Great substitutes don’t just want to punch a clock; they want to teach.

Reward Great Work with Pay Incentives.

Most people don’t grow up saying, “I want to make $30,000 a year for the rest of my life with no opportunity for financial growth.”

Find ways to reward the great work of exceptional substitute teachers so that your district retains them and helps them grow into a professional community member who furthers the goals of the district alongside administration and other educators. Look at ways to provide rewards and recognition for great service.

Reward great work with:

  • Tiered Pay: Consider tiered pay as an opportunity for a substitute to make more than the per-day flat fee to reward strong qualifications and work ethic.
  • Non-Monetary Rewards: Consider non-monetary rewards, too, such as placing substitute teachers on a preferred list where they may have more control over which classes they cover.
  • Recognition: Consider ways to elevate and honor those substitute teachers who show up regularly and further academic excellence in your schools.
  • Training: Consider providing pedagogical and technology training for substitutes early in the school year and explore online resources that can help.


By helping to increase their skills as educators, you’ll not only provide a benefit to your substitutes, you’ll be serving your students as well. As your district seeks to provide excellent education to your students, don’t overlook the crucial role that substitutes play. The more you recognize substitutes as partners in education, the more you’ll attract people who are invested in your mission — and that can only be a good thing for your school.

Course Libraries: Frequently Asked Questions

If you have questions about our course libraries (formerly known as EdTrainingCenter), you’re in the right place! We’ve put together the questions we most frequently hear from school districts who are researching our online courses.

What are some of the benefits of using Frontline’s online courses?

Our extensive course libraries let you meet all of your employees’ diverse learning needs. Educators can drive their own learning with relevant, just-in-time content. Substitutes and paraprofessionals can become more effective, and new hires can get up to speed with onboarding and compliance trainings. And you can easily track all of your employees’ learning activities, document their progress and reduce the risk of incidents or lawsuits.

  • Provide your educators with lessons from the best: all courses are taught by expert educators, typically with 10 years of experience in the subject area.
  • Ensure that your people get the training they need by assigning courses, or allow educators to choose the learning opportunities that best fit their needs.
  • Save time and money by letting employees complete courses on their own time, instead of hosting in-person workshops.
  • Easily keep track of employee professional learning and training. Our courses are SCORM-compliant, giving you confidence that they’ve actually completed the course.

What makes Frontline’s course libraries different?

Where should we start? Not only are all of our courses fully trackable, allowing your district to increase accountability, but we also have the widest variety of courses in the industry. No other vendor has all of the courses we offer — you would have to buy from four or five separate vendors to get all the content that Frontline offers in one place.

That convenience extends to accessing the courses themselves. As part of Frontline’s platform, learners can easily get the content they need, when they need it. For example, new hires can access their assigned onboarding and safety training courses directly from Frontline Recruiting & Hiring.

We are also the only provider that includes courses that help substitutes work with at-risk kids — students who are poor, hungry, homeless, traumatized, abused or suffering. We believe that we can help make a difference by empowering the front line of education to protect every student

What courses do you offer?

Our course libraries are comprised of over 800 courses total, including state-specific and state-mandated titles.

  • Safety & Onboarding Library (formerly known as “New Hire” and “Roots”): safety and compliance trainings for all job roles, as well as any state-mandated trainings.
  • Substitute Training Course Library: trainings for substitute teachers, paraprofessionals and school secretaries.
  • Professional Development and Mandatory Training Library (formerly known as “Post Hire” and “Growth”): a broad variety of courses designed to impact instructional practice and help your educators be as effective as possible.

Here’s just a taste of some of the topics we cover in our courses:

  • Ethics and professional conduct for educators
  • Classroom management, instructional pedagogy, and curriculum development
  • Support for at-risk youth, special education, ESL/ESOL and struggling students.
  • Use of educational technology, digital devices, internet resources and common software programs like Google Classroom
  • The Common Core Mathematics standards (including sub standards) for K-12 and
  • The College and Career Readiness CC standards for K-12.
  • The NGSS standards for K – 8th grades.
  • Financial literacy for 8th – 12th grades.
  • Teen dating violence
  • Drug- and alcohol-free schools

Are they videos or courses?

All of our available content is in course format. Although videos are built into the actual courses, our courses include more than just videos. They include interactive widgets, narrated presentations and built-in assessments.

What is the format of your courses?

All of our courses are built using the eLearning standard SCORM protocol. This means that users cannot “click-click-click” their way through courses and get credit. They also cannot mark them as complete themselves. Instead they have to read every page, listen to every narration, watch every video, and answer every assessment question in order to receive credit for completing a course.

Course lengths are listed in our catalog documents, but tend to be in the 20-30 minute range. The only exceptions are any state-mandated courses that require a specific length.

Can learners start and stop whenever they want or need to?

Yes! Learners can take courses on demand, logging in and out whenever they want to do so. The course will bookmark their progress and let them resume where they’ve left off. They don’t have to start over or try to remember where they stopped.

Do courses mark themselves as completed automatically or does an Administrator have to do it?

Courses are automatically marked as completed automatically once a learner has actually met all completion requirements (visiting every page, answering every quiz question, and depending on the course, answering every quiz question correctly or passing a graded quiz).

How do I know that someone has completed a course?

Administrators are able to view individual learners’ transcripts and generate reports that show completion records for whole groups of employees.

A Different Perspective on the Substitute Shortage

We hear about the substitute teacher shortage often, and we probably accept it without giving it a second thought. But what does “shortage” really mean? Fewer than before? Fewer than we expect? More turnover than we’d like? And what’s causing it?

It’s very possible that school administrators and Human Resources professionals focused on improving retention are already asking themselves these questions. And it’s very possible that they hold the key to attracting and retaining more, higher quality substitutes. The solution may be more human than you think.

The real problem: substitute teachers are undervalued

Ask any group of kids what they want to be when they grow up. You’ll hear:

  • “A football player!”
  • “A chef, because I like to eat!”
  • “A veterinarian; I think my neighbor’s dog is cool!”

But how many students would say they want to be undervalued, misunderstood, or have great work go unrewarded? (You got it: not many.)

Yet consciously or unconsciously, that’s the message we often communicate about substitute teaching.

Plenty of people out there are qualified to be substitute teachers. Yes, we have recruiting challenges. We have empty classrooms. We lose substitutes to other jobs. We do have a problem — but understanding what lies at the heart of it is the most important step toward solving it. Why are people choosing not to substitute? Why do substitutes work a few jobs and then not come back?

Understanding what lies at the heart of it is the most important step toward solving it. Why are people choosing not to substitute?

Substitutes are educators

A substitute teacher impacts multiple students’ educational journeys every day; they’re truly educators. You may think, “Subs are only in the classroom for one day. That isn’t enough time to make a difference.” But how many times has one single word, one kind action, one enlightened thought changed your life? Imagine what can be done with an entire day! Substitutes can offer that one moment that makes a difference.

Taking the baton: continuity in the classroom

The full-time teacher has established a particular culture in the classroom. Taking the baton and lending continuity to that teacher’s hard work is an art. And substitutes do it while facing challenges:

  • They often cover a subject or grade outside their area of expertise.
  • They routinely walk into unfamiliar environments, with unfamiliar people.
  • They’re expected to discuss multiple subjects.
  • They’re placed in semi-emergency situations all the time.

Many substitute teachers do all of this with grace and professionalism, and embrace the opportunity to impact educational journeys in the process. Certainly this is something worth choosing to do — so how do we make them feel that way before, during, and after a day in our school?

A step forward:

Substitute teaching is certainly not easy, and there are realities of the job we cannot change. We can, however, change perceptions around substituting. We can help people see that it’s worth choosing by treating it as an educator role worth supporting, recognizing, and encouraging in your district the humanity and capability of the substitute teacher. Help others do the same.

If we don’t see the job as something worth doing, how will anyone else?

Learn from substitutes already doing a great job

There are people in your district who choose to substitute. Ask them why.  Ask them how they approach their work. Ask them what would make the job better, and if they know of anyone who could be a good substitute teacher.

More than anything, thank them! Celebrate the fact that while everyone is talking about a “substitute shortage,” they still choose to substitute. Tell them that you appreciate their work in education. Then, tell everyone else about the great job and significant impact they are making each day. Retention will be your best recruiting tool for the new job of substituting.

A sincere thank you to Patty Blanchard, Human Resources Director Technology and Support Services, Portland Public Schools, Oregon, for her collaboration on this message. 

Survey Results: The Teacher Shortage and Recruiting with Data

In a recent survey, we found that two-thirds of all districts have a teacher shortage. That’s a lot of open positions gathering dust while districts stress over finding applicants. And even though that’s a significant shortage of teachers, I wasn’t exactly surprised. What did surprise me is that only 22% of all districts have data on which recruiting methods work and which don’t.

The vast majority of districts don’t have any data driving their recruiting strategies.

Let that sink in for a second. When it comes to recruiting — the first step to hiring the best person to teach our future leaders — most districts are essentially flying blind. Making recruiting decisions without any solid data has worked for schools so far, but if there’s a way to improve your process, especially facing a shortage of qualified applicants, why wouldn’t you at least try? After all, the modern world is all about using data, data and more data to drive decisions and shape strategies. Perhaps it’s time for districts to climb aboard the information train.

You’re already collecting information on your candidates through their resumes and applications; why not turn it into something usable? You can directly apply knowledge from this data to planning your recruiting strategy for the upcoming year — valuable information about which job fairs or other recruiting methods are attracting the most applicants, which colleges are producing the best applicants for your districts and, ultimately, where you should be concentrating your recruiting efforts.

Start with collecting the data

Making data-driven decisions first requires collecting the data. It’s certainly possible to try to track the outcomes of your recruiting efforts manually, but that is incredibly difficult and time-consuming. Instead, using an electronic applicant tracking system makes it much easier to examine where your applicants are coming from, how experienced they are, and which recruiting methods are netting you the most (or most qualified) applicants.

On the other hand, you might realize that your district is barking up the wrong tree and spending time and money on a recruiting method that just isn’t getting traction. With this information, you know where to redirect your time and energy during the next recruiting season.

Data in action: Deerfield Public School District 109

Executive Director of Human Resources Dale Fisher uses data from Frontline Recruiting & Hiring (formerly AppliTrack Recruiting and AppliTrack Fit) in Deerfield Public School 109’s recruiting and hiring process to ensure that every position is filled with a great candidate. He says that the district struggles with finding candidates for unique, specialized positions, particularly school nurses, physical therapists and occupational therapists. So, he looked at his district’s recruiting methods, which relied heavily on posting jobs on K12JobSpot (their “#1 tool for finding applicants”) and the Illinois Job Bank.

These methods are great for recruiting general education applicants — his district receives hundreds of applications for elementary ed positions — but he realized that Deerfield still had a shortage of school nurses, physical therapists and occupational therapists. These are “candidates who aren’t educators by nature,” which means that they probably are not actively looking for jobs in education. And yet, they’re not opposed to working for a district — it’s just that they take a different path when looking for a job than many district recruiters.

So, Deerfield Public Schools broadened their strategy to find people with the unique skills needed for these hard-to-fill positions. Now, he finds these specialized candidates by posting on Monster.com, where there is a broader pool of applicants, and by reaching out to professional networks, such as the Illinois Association of School Nurses. And because every candidate applies through Frontline Recruiting & Hiring, he’s able to track where qualified applicants are coming from, their experience level and their educational background. Having all of the data within one system (and not on paper) helps Deerfield Public Schools identify which opportunities to expand on, and which recruiting efforts aren’t working well for particular positions.

What could you learn from data?

Districts struggling with shortages, whether general or specific, need to know what recruiting methods to focus on to fill positions and stop spending time and money on channels that don’t work for their specific district. We are in the Age of Information — and that means we don’t need to develop recruiting strategies in the dark.

Get the full report on the teacher shortage

Over 500 districts shared their insights on the teacher shortage and recruiting strategies. Get the report.

 

 

How to Develop Your District’s Brand to Attract Top Candidates

You want to hire and retain the best teachers for your students. The problem is, so does everyone else. So how do you stay competitive and attract the best candidates?

You want to create a compelling brand that makes great teachers want to work for you and help achieve your district’s goals. This isn’t something that can be done in a day: it requires buy-in throughout your district and sustained effort, but the payoff is worth it. To develop your brand as an employer, you’ll need to tackle three questions:

1. Is your district visible?

2. How do job seekers perceive your district?

3. How can you use this information to improve your district brand?

1. Be visible

Developing your brand first requires that you look at your district’s visibility: if no one knows about you, it doesn’t matter how great your image is. Traditionally, visibility meant getting press releases out and being on the news. That’s not to say that media coverage is no longer important, just that most people now get their information from social media first and CNN second, including prospective employees. Setting up social media accounts with Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram for your school is the most important way that to enhance your visibility—if you update them regularly.

Speaking of updating, make sure that your school and teachers’ websites are kept up-to-date with pictures and video as well. One tip regarding the use of video: upload any videos to Vimeo, instead of YouTube. YouTube is popular, but has a very unfortunate “Related Videos” feature that will put recommendations for clips with titles like “Fight at (School Name)” next to your promotional materials. Even if it’s a similarly-named school that isn’t in your district, you don’t want your district to have this kind of negative association. You want your schools to be associated with friendly people, great kids, and a welcoming environment.

2. Improve candidates’ perceptions of your district

For job seekers, perception is reality. What they experience when interacting with your district in person or online has a huge impact on how they view your district, and what they will share with others. And they will share their experiences with others, so it’s important to ensure that everyone has a positive experience with your district. If a candidate comes to one of your schools and the building is dirty, or the employees are unfriendly, they won’t want to work there and may tell other teachers not to apply.

You want to always put your best foot forwards and make sure that potential applicants see your district in the best light possible. Of course, you might think that your district is a great place to work, but how do you know if job seekers see it the same way? One method is to check Glassdoor.com, a site that allows job seekers to post reviews of employers. District administrators may not be aware of this site, but applicants certainly are. Districts are advised not to respond to negative reviews, in case their response comes off as offensive to the poster or other job seekers.

Once you have an idea of how your district is perceived, you can begin to improve your district’s brand and position your district as a great place to work. You want candidates to see your district as a friendly, welcoming environment, so make sure that your staff members and administrators are always polite and helpful when candidates call or visit. It also helps to always follow up on unscheduled in-person visits. You don’t need to respond with a phone call, a generic email will do.

“Thank you for stopping by. Unfortunately, we do not have any open positions at this time. However, we will keep your information on file. In the meantime, please visit our website.”

An email like this may not be personalized, but goes a long way in improving candidates’ perceptions of your district. And even if that candidate wasn’t right for your district, they will talk about their experience with others who may be the perfect fit.

It also pays to be mindful of student teachers and substitutes, who may consider returning to your district as applicants for full-time positions. Many substitutes report that they come to schools with no preparation or lesson plans from the absent teacher, or that they were never welcomed to the building by the principal. Having principals take the time to speak with each new teacher, substitute, and student teacher helps make them feel valued and want to return.

3. Market your district as a great employer

You will need a plan to rebrand your district as a great employer. A SWOT UP (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats, Understand, Plan) analysis is commonly used in business ventures and planning, but can be invaluable for districts as well. It is comprised of six steps:

1. Focus on your strengths. What are the great things about your schools? Share your strengths, don’t keep them a secret!

2. Review your weaknesses. How is your district struggling? You have to acknowledge where your district falls short in order to make improvements.

3. Look at opportunities. What opportunities or partnerships are available to you? What resources can you use, and what partnerships could you form to improve on your weaknesses?

4. Recognize threats. What conditions or activities negatively impact your school? If you are located in an urban area, new teachers with a lot of potential could be afraid of the location based on preconceived notions. Or, you might have competitors who grab a lot of great candidates.

5. Take the time to understand how these factors impact your recruitment and retention statistics. Do you have high teacher turnover, or low application rates for vacancies? Once you know which area is being impacted the most, you can direct your efforts to alleviating the problem.

6. Develop a plan and determine what steps you can take to effect change, such as creating newsletters, updating your website, or participating in job fairs.

Whatever plan you come up with, you will need to make sure that every employee in your district is on board. Your district will need to be a team and everyone will need to work together. One person cannot rebrand a district on their own, and will need to share responsibilities with others. When it comes to your district, everyone is a brand ambassador. It’s critical that everyone understands their role in positioning your organization as a great place to work.

Great teachers want to work for districts that have invested time and effort into their brand. Developing a great brand for your district boils down to three key messages: be visible, improve candidates’ perceptions of your district, and market your district as a great employer. Remember, great branding isn’t only for businesses: it can help you recruit and retain the best teachers for your students, as well.

 

Employee Onboarding: Improve First Impressions & Lasting Retention | Part Four

If you’ve read parts one, two, and three of this series, you understand the impact the onboarding experience has on your district’s health and employee retention. You understand the value of instilling in your employees pride for their roles within your district, and you have some tips on how to improve the interaction and relationships built through the onboarding experience.

In the final part of this series, I want to show you how you can use time and technology to enhance the onboarding experience.

Expand Your Onboarding Process

In “Onboarding New Employees: Maximizing Success,” Tayla Bauer offers the “Four C’s” that should be present in all successful onboarding processes:

  • “Compliance is the lowest level and includes teaching employees basic legal and policy-related rules and regulations.”
  • “Clarification refers to ensuring that employees understand their new jobs and all related expectations.”
  • “Culture is a broad category that includes providing employees with a sense of organizational norms-both formal and informal.”
  • “Connection refers to the vital interpersonal relationships and information networks that new employees must establish.”

If your district’s onboarding process only lasts the first day or two on the job, do you believe you’ll have enough time to truly express the culture of the district? Will you have enough time to establish legitimate connections between new employees and their peers, supervisors and the district administration?

Probably not. But unfortunately, that’s what happens in many school districts. However, according to a survey by the Society for Human Resource Management, approximately 46% of those surveyed began their onboarding between accepting the employment offer and day 1 on the job.

With only a day or two slated for onboarding procedures, many employers would only find time for the first two C’s necessary for successful onboarding. Expanding the onboarding process before day one can help give you the time you need to cover all areas pertinent to your employees’ assimilation into the district.

SilkRoad Technology
Creating an Onboarding Process 

“The first few days on the job can be crammed full of information, but if you’ve been able to take advantage of starting prior to day one, the amount of information you need to cover during this period will be relatively less. . . . This provides you the opportunity to go more in depth into certain topics than you would with programs of shorter duration.”

In addition to starting the onboarding process before your employees’ first day on the job, you should extend your onboarding practices after the first day as well. In fact, you should make an effort to deliberately onboard your new hires throughout their whole first semester or year. The same SHRM survey indicated 32% of employers surveyed extended their onboarding activities from 8 days on the job up to during the first 6 months.

SilkRoad Technology
Creating an Onboarding Process 

“Studies have shown that extending onboarding beyond the first day, preferably from 3 months to one year, can significantly improve the overall experience and the resulting engagement and retention of your employee base.”

Here are some examples of extended onboarding activities that enable you to focus on before and throughout an employee’s first school year:

  • Additional job-specific training in smaller chunks
  • Benefit decision-making, enrollment resources and tools
  • Confirmation of compliance notifications and training
  • Initial evaluation event and document tracking
  • Connecting with mentors and other employees
  • Other performance goal documentation
  • Providing feedback to the employer on the new employee’s onboarding experience

Common Barriers to Expanding

If better onboarding and an emphasis on culture are so important, why don’t more employers take steps to implement these changes in their districts? Districts often cite the following obstacles:

  • Time – can’t spare workers from their jobs
  • Insufficient HR or other staff to implement
  • Finances
  • Lack of Senior Admin support
  • Not enough annual new hires to emphasize new practices

While these barriers do pose problems for districts, onboarding technology with pricing scalable to the size of your district can actually relieve most of these challenges.

Using Technology to Automate Onboarding Processes

By using recruiting and onboarding tools, you can automatically gather information as your new hires pre-board online. Automating these basic onboarding steps can save a great deal of time and paperwork management, allowing your HR team to focus on the rest of their duties, even during recruiting and onboarding season.

Then, by getting the more tedious parts of the process out of the way ahead of time, you can spend your employees’ first few days giving tours, conducting group exercises and building relationships that will strengthen your individual employees’ engagement in your district.

And by improving engagement and thereby increasing employee retention, your district could see a significant decrease in your annual recruiting costs. In “Fully on-board: Getting the most from your talent in the first year,” Martin and Lombardi offer the five key functions that “best in class” employers utilize in their onboarding processes:

  • Reporting tools that monitor which employees have completed what forms and tasks
  • Tools that leverage data collected in the recruiting process
  • Tools that track progress against development/career plans
  • Tools that automatically trigger emails when status changes from applicant to employee
  • “Smart forms” that pre-populate fields with built-in routing/workflow Using Technology to Promote Your Culture

The advantages of technology for accomplishing the “paperwork” side of onboarding are obvious. But could your district also use technology to transmit culture?

SilkRoad Technology
Creating an Onboarding Process 

 “Employees who know what to expect from their company’s culture and work environment make better decisions that are more aligned with the accepted practices of the company.”

Creating an awareness of your culture will help new hires, current staff, students and parents understand what to expect and how to identify with your district.

Consider content, such as a video, on your district website or social media channels to welcome newcomers and communicate what the district culture is really like.

Several districts, including Dallas ISD, Atlanta Public Schools, Goshen Central School District and Des Moines Public Schools use Pinterest to share resources and communicate the culture people can expect to find in their schools. Efforts like this to produce engaging content and to utilize media channels relevant to the people in your district shows that your district cares about its culture and the people within it.

Better Onboarding = Greater Student Success

Time and attention opens opportunities for recognition. Recognition increases employee motivation. Higher motivation increases employee engagement. Higher engagement increases commitment. Higher commitment increases discretionary effort, loyalty and retention. Higher discretionary effort, loyalty and retention increases employee productivity and performance achievement. Higher employee productivity and performance achievement increases student success. It’s all related.

Self-Evaluation Worksheet

Want to see how you’re doing in your district? Try this onboarding self-evaluation checklist and scoresheet to document possible next steps for your district as you work to enhance your district’s onboarding process.

We recommend completing the Self Evaluation Checklist first and filling out the “Doing this currently” column. Then review the Scoresheet to see if your answers rate as “basic,” “advanced” or “enhanced” on the scoresheet afterward.

What steps are you taking to improve first impressions and lasting retention in your district?

 

Employee Onboarding: Improve First Impressions & Lasting Retention | Part Three

A recent study shows nearly 70% of your teachers are not engaged in their jobs. That’s troubling news for American education.

Many district administrators balk at a statistic that drastic, believing it cannot be true of their district. But according to a recent Gallup survey of 7,200 teachers, 31% of teachers are engaged, 56% are not engaged (although satisfied), and 13% are actively disengaged.

Gallup defines these terms as follows:

Engaged: “Involved in, enthusiastic about, and committed to their work . . . knowing the scope of their jobs and constantly looking for new and better ways to achieve outcomes”

Not Engaged: “May be satisfied with their jobs, but they are not emotionally connected to their workplace and unlikely to devote much discretionary effort to their work”

Actively Disengaged: “Dissatisfied with their workplace and likely to be spreading negativity to their coworkers”

Naturally, any organization would want its employees to be engaged with their daily job and company culture. The benefits or the costs of engaged or disengaged employees are obvious. However, the burden of K-12 school districts to engage its employees is far greater than increasing a profit line.

Any district employee – especially a teacher – who is “enthusiastic about, and committed to their work” is significantly more likely to make a positive impact on a student’s growth. We need our students to be surrounded by a faculty and staff who are “looking for new and better ways to achieve outcomes.”

Yet according to Gallup’s sampling results, less than a third of K-12 teachers in the U.S. are actually engaged with their roles in their districts. How can we work to correct this?

In part one and part two of this series, I defined onboarding and talked about its benefits for school districts and their new employees.

In part three, I want to help equip you to successfully improve the number of engaged employees for your district.

Fostering Engagement for Retention

The word ENGAGE is a handy mnemonic for remembering six key actions you can take to foster engagement in your district and increase employee retention – and not only with new hires.

  • Expanded recognition
  • Networking availability and encouragement
  • Generated “input for impact” dialogue
  • Access to resources
  • Giving your time
  • Evaluations made often

E. Expanded recognition

Employee recognition should be given across all levels of the district. Employees should feel welcomed as a member of the team by their peers, as valuable assets by their immediate supervisor, and as individuals by their district administration.

Establish programs for effective recognition that increase the number of persons highlighted, such as rewards or employee spotlights on district newsletters or allowing peer “high-fives” to be given via social media, as examples.

N. Networking availability and encouragement

Networking is important as a career- and relationship-building opportunity. If an employee doesn’t have the chance to build a relationship with other members of the district (on multiple different levels), then that employee probably won’t be engaged with his or her role in the district.

Here are some potential networking options:

  • Committees and task forces
  • Work team projects
  • Division or department challenges
  • Group wellness activities
  • Community service projects
  • Campus renovation days
  • Group volunteer days
  • Staff meal prep
  • Interest-based outings

G. Generated “input for impact” dialogue

Most employers collect information on why employees leave, exit interviews. Why not collect information on why employees choose to stay? Kathryn Tyler of SHRM HR Magazine writes about the value of interviewing employees who have chosen to stay at your district in her article “Who Will Stay and Who Will Go?”

Start with the top performers and influencers of your district. Find out what it is about your district that engages them. Not only will this interaction further their own engagement by asking their valued opinion, but it will help you to understand how to engage the rest of your staff as well.

This will also give you the opportunity to collect data to determine critical timeframes for engaging employees in your district, prior to when your data indicates an upswing in voluntary departures. In their survey, Gallup uncovered correlations between how experienced a teacher was and their level of engagement.

engagement by experience level chart

Insights like these can help you make informed decisions for your district.

A. Access to resources

Remember, engaged employees are “constantly looking for new and better ways to achieve outcomes.” It would be hard for an employee to innovate or improve the impact of their job if they don’t have access to valuable resources. You need to equip your district’s staff, so that they can equip your district’s students.

Here are just a few examples of resources you could provide to your employees:

Cover class or job responsibilities to observe a peer or meet to collaborate
Send to workshop, class, clinic, presentation
Nominate for a committee or team
Bring in a specialist, presenter, program
Introduce to an expert, colleague, organization
Provide web links, videos, newsletters, trainers

G. Giving your time

Your district’s administrators and supervisors need to genuinely and generously give time to their employees, especially in the onboarding period. Spend this time giving employees validation by slowing yourself down to listen to their needs and ideas and to build real relationships with them. If you meet your employees on a level of respect, first as a person and second as an employee, you’ll stand a far better chance of earning their respect and keeping them in your district.

E. Evaluations made often

Effective evaluation is like effective practice. You need to commit to regular evaluations so you can understand the status and see the growth of each employee, and they can understand your expectations.

Early in an employee’s career, frequent evaluations will help establish engagement between you and your new staff member, and it will help you track their productivity. Over time, as the employee demonstrates progress and mastery in their role, you can distribute your evaluations less frequently throughout the year, so that you can focus more time on new employees. Noticing that you are “loosening the leash” a bit by spacing out evaluations demonstrates trust, which in turn increases the employee’s motivation and engagement.

If you can form a habit of talking with your employees – not at them – early and often in their careers, and provide the necessary guidance and resources they need to grow in their role, your district will enjoy and retain a more fully engaged team.

In the fourth and final post in this series, I will talk about how you can use technology to spread out your district’s onboarding process to give more attention to specific areas that are often overlooked by the common onboarding experience: areas beyond mandatory compliance notifications and the “dos and don’ts” in procedure handbooks and policies.

Employee Onboarding: Improve First Impressions & Lasting Retention | Part Two

In the last blog post, I defined onboarding, explained why it’s important for districts to master, and offered one area where school districts can cultivate the loyalty of their new employees: pride. In part two of the series, I want to give you some practical tips for how you can approach the onboarding experience in a way that will further engage your new employees and help them to understand your expectations.

Your Objectives for Onboarding

As a school district, you have specific takeaways you want your new employees to understand after going through the onboarding process. In “Onboarding: The First Line of Engagement,” Martin and Bourke offer five benefits organizations want to achieve through onboarding:

1. Ensure new employees are engaged and assimilated into the company’s culture

2. Help your new employees become productive faster

3. Increase retention of new employees

4. Improve the experience your organization offers via more effective employees

5. Save on long-term costs

The first two are obvious and important. You need to bring your new hires into the fold of the district staff. And this isn’t just for their own sake. A Texas Instruments study showed that employees reached “full productivity” two months sooner when their onboarding process was fully attended to, as compared to those whose was not.

A lot of ground can be gained or lost in two months. After two months, nearly half of a semester is over. Employees have already established their opinions on their position within the district, and students have certainly solidified their opinions of the district’s staff. After two months of employment, the battle for an employee’s engagement has largely already been won or lost.

However, an effective onboarding process affects more than the productivity of your employees. Improving your onboarding experience also improves your district’s employee retention and long-term recruiting costs.

David Lee of HumanNature@Work cites several examples of organizations that reduced their employee turnover by improving their onboarding experience. Hunter Douglas reduced their employee turnover from 70% to 16% in just six months. Likewise, Designer Blinds reduced their annual turnover from a staggering 200% to less than 8%, which directly translated to a reduction of their recruiting budget.

However, the true cost of something isn’t always in dollars and cents. The cost of losing your best employees to voluntary attrition can also be seen in:

1. A lower morale of remaining employees
2. Questionable supervision inquiries
3. Reduced public satisfaction
4. Service or performance declines and delays
5. A change in organizational reputation

Your Employees’ Objectives for Onboarding

So how do you improve your onboarding experience? One of the biggest mistakes you can make in your employee onboarding is to take a one-sided approach to the process. Another is trying to cram too much into too little of a time frame. Two parties are involved in the onboarding process: the district and the new hires. You must take adequate time to acknowledge the needs and wants of both parties in order to have an effective process.

Often the time crunch of compacting onboarding activities into only a few hours or a couple of days causes district staff to overload and overwhelm their newest talent at a time when those recruits should be most excited and enthusiastic.

If you want to change your district’s employee engagement and retention, invert your onboarding process and focus on employees’ questions first.

Ask yourself what your individual employees want to know. Then ask yourself what the district wants its employees to know. Your employees’ questions may seem secondary compared to the high-level expectations the district needs to set, but if the employees’ questions aren’t answered, they might be too preoccupied to focus on what the district is communicating.

In “What New Employees Really Need to Know,” Lin Grensing-Pophal shares three categories of questions on new employees’ minds, as well as the order in which they should be addressed:

The Things That Affect Employees Personally

“Where should I park? What should I wear?”
“Where should I report? What are my work hours?”
“Will I be expected to work overtime? To work evenings? Weekends?”
“How does the phone system work? When will my email be active?”
“What’s my network login and password? Do I get keys?”

The Things That Affect Employees as a Member of Their Department

“Who will I be working with?”
“Who are the people I need to get to know in the department and in other departments?”
“How will my work be judged?”
“Are there opportunities to serve on special committees or task forces and how can I find out more?”
“If I have ideas, suggestions or concerns, what channels exist to share those concerns?”
“How do people prefer to communicate in this organization? (Face to face? By e-mail? Phone?)”

The Things That Affect Employees as a Member of the Organization

“What are the organization’s mission, vision and values (and how does my department fit into this)?”
“Do we have a strategic plan? What does it entail?”
“What are the major external issues that impact us?”
“What are our priorities? What are our long-range goals?”
“What are employees rewarded and recognized for?”

As Maslow from your psychology class has suggested, if you can meet the more foundational, immediate “safety-security-survival” needs of new employees, they will be in a better frame of mind to consider their place within the district at large and be more receptive and engaged for your district agendas.

Conclusion

Focusing on your employees’ needs first will guarantee that they are engaged in the onboarding process from the start. By engaging them, they’ll become better assimilated into your district staff, and therefore become productive faster. Productive employees are generally more satisfied with their roles in the district, and will likely remain at the district longer, improving district performance and saving on recruiting expenses. In part three of my onboarding series, I will give you specific tips for fostering engagement to improve employee relationships and retention.

MyLearningPlan FAQs (Now Frontline Professional Growth)

Questions about our professional learning and teacher evaluation management system formerly known as MyLearningPlan? You’ve come to the right place!

Here are a few of the most frequent questions we hear from school districts that are researching Frontline Professional Growth. Don’t see your question here? Feel free to contact us!

Why isn’t it called MyLearningPlan anymore?

MyLearningPlan, a well-known provider of educator professional growth and evaluation management tools for K-12 school districts, was acquired in May 2015 by Frontline Education.

Frontline Education is a leading provider of school administration software. MyLearningPlan is now part of Frontline Professional Growth, aligning it with the rest of the solutions Frontline Education offers.

How is Frontline Professional Growth different from MyLearningPlan OASYS or PDMS?

These applications are still a part of Frontline Professional Growth, although these days they’re known as Employee Evaluation Management and Professional Learning Management They are part of the broader Frontline Professional Growth solution, which includes tools to manage professional learning and evaluation, as well as resources for teachers to enhance their own learning and collaborate with each other online.

Why manage professional development online?

 
Frontline Professional Growth isn’t about removing the human touch from employee evaluations or professional learning. Quite the opposite, actually.  By simplifying the professional learning process, compiling forms, goals and PD resources in one place, and improving transparency throughout the whole evaluation process, Frontline Professional Growth helps district leaders cultivate consistent, substantial professional learning for all staff. Plus, by giving teachers direct access to their PD resources and evaluation data, teachers can revisit their goals regularly as they seek to grow in their careers.

What forms are included in the solution?

Frontline Professional Growth is all about flexibility. Districts can provide their current forms and rubrics, and our employee evaluation management tools allow you to configure the process to fit what you need. The management tools will allow you to oversee every component of the evaluation process, including: self-reflection and goal setting, in-class observations, student learning objectives and growth data. That means you can focus on having meaningful discussions about instructional practice with educators.

How does Frontline Professional Growth simplify how we manage forms?

By adding all your forms online within Frontline Professional Growth, the data is easily tracked by not only the end user, but by administration as well. This eliminates the need for spreadsheets to track things like licensure, salary movements, district-required hours and other requirements. Instead, the system replaces your spreadsheets with easily accessible reports, which can always be downloaded to Excel if needed.

Will the solution allow for multiple methods of scoring?

Yes! Frontline Professional Growth’s configuration process is very flexible. Districts can determine their scoring philosophy, be it a Scoring Form Approach, Holistic Approach or a hybrid of these approaches. The solution also allows districts to use conversion charts.

Will the teachers have access to their evaluation data?

Yes, teachers have direct access to their evaluation data, enabling them to regularly assess their progress.

Teachers have the ability to complete forms such as self-reflections and SLO/SGO forms. They also have the ability to upload evaluation evidence via the artifact section – an electronic portfolio for teachers.

Can districts manage SLOs in the solution?

With Frontline Professional Growth, you can host all of your Student Learning Objective data in one system, managing single or multiple SLOs for each person.

Does the system support educator growth based on evaluation results?

You can incorporate data from multiple measures, and with the full Frontline Professional Growth solution, recommend targeted professional learning based on evaluation results. This is known as the Learning Loop, and provides professional learning recommendations through the correlation of individual evaluation outcomes to state-standard-aligned PD opportunities.

Can the system help us with collaborative professional learning?

Yes! Our professional learning management system helps create and manage any type of collaborative or blended learning. Using Groups in Learning & Collaboration Resources, users can participate in discussions with one another, share files, upload videos to request feedback and more. Potential collaborative learning activities include Professional Learning Communities (PLCs), book studies, mentoring and collegial circles. They can be leveraged within the district or even across districts, connecting educators from across the nation to collaborate and share ideas. Groups can also be combined with face-to-face workshops for a more blended experience.

How can we recommend professional learning specifically to our teachers who are in need of improvement?

If your district is using Frontline’s Employee Evaluation Management system, the activities in your Professional Learning Management Catalog can be aligned to recommend professional learning based on evaluation outcomes.

How does Frontline Professional Growth help to streamline professional development management?

Frontline Professional Growth can make your office paperless! We can create your forms online for things such as conferences, graduate courses, salary movements, tuition reimbursements, mentoring plans, mentoring logs, Personal Goal Plans, and more. Then, we help you create an electronic workflow so the form is automatically routed to the appropriate administrators.

Beautiful Dashboards. Real Insights.

Frontline Professional Growth puts the information you need at your fingertips.

See How  

Our district purchased Frontline’s Learning & Collaboration Resources. Can we use those courses in Frontline Professional Growth?

Yes! Resources can be easily added to activities in Professional Learning Management as a source of professional learning. Additionally, districts may upload their own curated resources to the Resource Library. All resources are also available for exploratory learning at any time

Does it integrate with my other software systems?

Frontline Professional Growth integrates with Frontline Absence Management to automatically create an absence and generate a sub request when a PD request requiring a teacher absence is approved.  State-specific integrations are also available.  Additionally, Frontline Professional Growth integrates with other systems via an sFTP process. Frontline provides a list of current integrations here.

How much does it cost?

Frontline Professional Growth is billed as annual subscription based on a per-user license. If you’re interested in using the system, a Frontline representative can discuss your specific needs and send you a proposal.

Does using Frontline Professional Growth save my district time and money?

Yes! By streamlining the submission and approval of forms, evaluation process and access to learning resources, as well as making your data readily available, Frontline Professional Growth saves your administrators time that can be devoted to working with educators to improve student outcomes.

The Cost of Professional Learning:

Do you know your current spend?

Find Out  

What hardware or software do I need to install?

None! Frontline Professional Growth is an entirely web-based solution, so only an Internet connection is required.

Where can I learn more about Frontline Professional Growth?

Visit our solution page for more information about using Frontline Professional Growth.

You may enjoy this hand-picked content:

Best Practices in Professional Learning: Greece Central School District  

 
 

Frontline Professional Growth Frequently Asked Questions (Formerly MyLearningPlan PDMS)

Questions about our professional learning management system formerly known as MyLearningPlan PDMS? You’ve come to the right place!

Here are a few of the most frequent questions we hear from school districts that are researching Frontline Professional Growth. Don’t see your question here? Feel free to contact us!

Why isn’t it called MyLearningPlan PDMS anymore?

MyLearningPlan, a well-known provider of educator professional growth and management tools for K-12 school districts, was acquired on May 1, 2015 by Frontline Education.

Frontline Education is a leading provider of K-12 administrative software. MyLearningPlan PDMS is now part of Frontline Professional Growth, aligning it with the rest of the solutions Frontline Education offers.

How is Frontline Professional Growth different from MyLearningPlan PDMS?

Despite the name change, the software hasn’t changed in terms of functionality — although now the Professional Development Management application is just one part of the broader Frontline Professional Growth solution, which includes tools to manage professional learning, promote coaching and peer collaboration and train and calibrate observers. Our team is working constantly to improve Frontline Professional Growth’s integration with the rest of Frontline’s solutions to provide your district with even better tools.

Why manage professional learning online?

Frontline Professional Growth isn’t about removing the human touch from professional learning. Quite the opposite, actually. By simplifying the professional learning process, compiling forms, goals and PD resources in one place, and improving transparency throughout the whole evaluation process, Frontline Professional Growth helps district leaders cultivate consistent, substantial professional learning for all of their staff. Plus, by giving teachers direct access to their PD resources and evaluation data, teachers can revisit their goals regularly as they seek to grow in their careers.

Can the system help us with collaborative professional learning?

Yes! Our professional learning management system helps create and manage any type of collaborative or blended learning. The program creates Team Rooms where users can participate in discussions with one another, share files and even log their time together. Potential collaborative learning activities include Professional Learning Communities (PLCs), book studies, mentoring and collegial circles. Team Rooms are a great way for users to share work with one another, such as lesson plans based on new learning. Team Rooms can also be combined with face-to-face workshops for a more blended experience.

How can we recommend professional learning specifically to our teachers who are in need of improvement?

If your district is using Frontline’s employee evaluation management system(formerly known as MyLearningPlan OASYS), the activities in your Catalog can be easily aligned to recommended professional learning.

How does Frontline Professional Growth help to streamline professional development management?

Frontline Professional Growth can make your office paperless! We can create your forms online for things such as conferences, graduate courses, salary movements, tuition reimbursements, mentoring plans, mentoring logs, Personal Goal Plans and more. Then, we help you create an electronic workflow so the form is automatically routed to the appropriate administrators.

How does Frontline Professional Growth simplify how we manage forms?

By adding all your forms online within Frontline Professional Growth, the data is easily tracked by not only the end user, but by administration as well. This eliminates the need for spreadsheets to track things like licensure, salary movements, district-required hours and other requirements. Instead, the system replaces your spreadsheets with easily accessible reports, which can always be downloaded to Excel if needed.

Our district purchased Frontline’s course libraries. Can we use those courses in Frontline Professional Growth?

Yes! Content is easily added to the professional learning management system as an additional source of professional learning.

Does it integrate with my other software systems?

Yes. Frontline Professional Growth integrates with other systems via an sFTP process. Frontline provides a list of current integrations here.

How much does it cost?

Frontline Professional Growth is billed as annual subscription based on a per-user license. If you’re interested in using the system, a Frontline representative can discuss your specific needs and send you a proposal.

Does using Frontline Professional Growth save my district time and money?

Yes! By streamlining the submission and approval of forms, our professional learning management system makes your data more visible via our reporting tool. This creates the opportunity for an in-depth analysis of the efficacy of your professional learning processes .

What hardware or software do I need to install?

None! Frontline Professional Growth is an entirely web-based solution, so only an Internet connection is required .

Where can I learn more about Frontline Professional Growth’s employee evaluation management application (formerly MyLearningPlan OASYS)?

For more information about using Frontline Professional Growth for managing observations and evaluations, please visit this page.