The Model School Board Training course was developed and refined across eight training sessions, with input from participants, presenters, state staff, and the state school boards association. The course covers issues of financial management, crisis management, personnel, instruction, and school law, and engages school board members in discussion, role playing, presentations, and small group work. In 1994 the Lab shared the program with school board associations in other Southeastern states. Focus groups with former participants discovered several positive effects from the training, including a clearer understanding of board member roles and responsibilities, better consensus-building skills, and increased knowledge about education issues. There's a lot of creativity that came from better communications among all of us, and a sense of renewal, and a sense of commitment that this is a position with responsibility.
Networks can also offer follow-up opportunities for participants in professional development.
In 1990, a small group of educators met in San Francisco with WestEd to discuss that possibility. Five years later, the Laboratory has evidence from developmental research and external evaluations that the process can work. Through its Institute for Case Development, it has pioneered the use of brief, vivid, teacher-written cases, based on real classroom dilemmas, to catalyze discussion and reflection in teacher preparation and professional development. Cases can bridge the gap between what teachers learn at the university and what they really experience on the job as groups of teachers meet regularly to discuss cases in a particular subject. Casebooks are also being prepared for reading, primary math, high school math, elementary science, and math problem solving.