New Orleans
Professional Development School
Executive Summary

All children, regardless of how they look, where they come from, or how they learn, can achieve school success when provided with highly effective teachers and positive, supportive learning environments. 

From the moment a child steps into a classroom, the single most important factor in determining how well he will learn is the teacher. Standards set the course, and assessments provide the benchmarks, but it is highly effective teaching that makes substantial, sustained gains in student learning. 

The New Orleans Professional Development School (NOPDS) will ensure that our children’s teachers have access to high quality, practical, evidence-based professional learning that is relevant to the needs of their students and to their individual needs.  Providing a cohesive system of support, the NOPDS will serve as a clearinghouse, coordinator, provider, and researcher of professional learning services for New Orleans schools.                      

NOPDS professional learning will provide practical knowledge and strategies to assist in those critical classroom moments when teachers are faced with the reality of struggling students. It will help teachers tackle real-time issues such as how to remediate struggling readers and ways to differentiate instruction for the diverse learners in their classrooms.  This practical, coordinated and comprehensive support to teachers is a crucial “missing link” in our city’s education renaissance.

Teachers and teacher leaders in schools in the Greater New Orleans area – experienced and inexperienced, traditional and nontraditional, will benefit from the NOPDS services. Working side-by-side with both new and experienced teachers, NOPDS professionals will provide coaching and modeling in the classroom as well as customized, interactive learning sessions.

The NOPDS will support new thinking, new doing and new understanding. It will bring evidence-based and high-yield practices to educators. It will promote professional learning that is embedded in schools, that happens every day, that is transparent, collaborative and inclusive, and that uses student data to evaluate its progress and effectiveness.  It will include general, subject- and grade-specific knowledge, strategies and tactics. Offerings will also include coursework to satisfy certification regulations for educators as well as coursework toward graduate-level degrees.

Projected key outcomes are (1) increased student achievement; (2) increased graduation rates/reduced dropout rates; (3) increased numbers of well-prepared, highly effective teachers; (4) increased retention of teachers; (5) lateral capacity building among schools and educators; and (6) a cohesive system of support.

The need for such an entity has been recognized.  Both the 2006 Bring New Orleans Back Education Committee’s plan and the 2007 State of New Orleans Public Schools report called for a “Capacity Building/ Professional Development organization that is tightly aligned with student needs and school achievement goals”.

The NOPDS will be operated by a partnership consisting of the Center for Development and Learning, the Greater New Orleans Education Foundation, local and statewide education nonprofit organizations and Louisiana universities.  Professional development will be facilitated by NOPDS staff, staff of local and national universities and organizations, and highly-qualified contracted providers.

Annual external evaluations and fiscal audits will be conducted to determine value added and to ensure wise use of funds. Program evaluation will measure gains in student achievement; gains in the knowledge and skill levels of educators; and changes in educators’ attitudes, behaviors and aspirations.

The NOPDS will be funded by combination of grants, donations and fees for service.   

For more information, please contact:

Alice Thomas
President & CEO
Center for Development and Learning
One Galleria Boulevard, Suite 903
Metairie, LA 70001
(504) 840-9786
athomas@cdl.org
www.cdl.org

Robert D. Reily
Chairman
Greater New Orleans Education Foundation
1515 Poydras Street, Suite 1880
New Orleans, LA 70115
(504) 593-9611 (GNOEF office)
(504) 524-6131 (Office at The Reily Companies)
www.rhdreily@yahoo.com