122A.60 STAFF DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM.
(a) A school board must use the revenue authorized in section 122A.61 for:
(1) teacher development and evaluation plans under section 122A.40, subdivision 8, or 122A.41, subdivision 5;
(2) principal development and evaluation under section 123B.147, subdivision 3;
(3) in-service education programs under section 120B.22, subdivision 2; and
(4) other staff development needs.
(b) The board must establish an advisory staff development committee to develop the plan, assist site professional development teams in developing a site plan consistent with the goals of the plan, and evaluate staff development efforts at the site level. A majority of the advisory committee and the site professional development team must be teachers representing various grade levels, subject areas, and special education. The advisory committee must also include nonteaching staff, parents, and administrators.
(a) Staff development activities must:
(1) focus on the school classroom and research-based strategies that improve student learning;
(2) provide opportunities for teachers to practice and improve their instructional skills over time;
(3) provide opportunities for teachers to use student data as part of their daily work to increase student achievement;
(4) enhance teacher content knowledge and instructional skills, including to accommodate the delivery of digital and blended learning and curriculum and engage students with technology;
(5) align with state and local academic standards;
(6) provide opportunities to build professional relationships, foster collaboration among principals and staff who provide instruction, and provide opportunities for teacher-to-teacher mentoring;
(7) align with the plan of the district or site for an alternative teacher professional pay system;
(8) provide teachers of English learners, including English as a second language and content teachers, with differentiated instructional strategies critical for ensuring students' long-term academic success; the means to effectively use assessment data on the academic literacy, oral academic language, and English language development of English learners; and skills to support native and English language development across the curriculum; and
(9) provide opportunities for staff to learn about current workforce trends, the connections between workforce trends and postsecondary education, and training options, including career and technical education options.
Staff development activities may include curriculum development and curriculum training programs, and activities that provide teachers and other members of site-based teams training to enhance team performance. The school district also may implement other staff development activities required by law and activities associated with professional teacher compensation models.
(b) Release time provided for teachers to supervise students on field trips and school activities, or independent tasks not associated with enhancing the teacher's knowledge and instructional skills, such as preparing report cards, calculating grades, or organizing classroom materials, may not be counted as staff development time that is financed with staff development reserved revenue under section 122A.61.
The plan must include the staff development outcomes under section 122A.40, subdivision 8, or 122A.41, subdivision 5, and section 123B.147, subdivision 3, the means to achieve the outcomes, and procedures for evaluating progress at each school site toward meeting education and staff development outcomes, consistent with relicensure requirements under section 122A.187. The plan also must:
(1) support stable and productive professional communities achieved through ongoing and schoolwide progress and growth in teaching practice;
(2) emphasize coaching, professional learning communities, classroom action research, and other job-embedded models;
(3) maintain a strong subject matter focus premised on students' learning goals, consistent with section 120B.125;
(4) ensure specialized preparation and learning about issues related to teaching English learners and students with special needs by focusing on long-term systemic efforts to improve educational services and opportunities and raise student achievement; and
(5) reinforce national and state standards of effective teaching practice.
The advisory staff development committee must adopt a staff development plan, consistent with section 122A.40, subdivision 8, or 122A.41, subdivision 5, for developing and evaluating teachers and for improving student outcomes and with section 123B.147, subdivision 3, for strengthening principals' capacity in areas of instruction, supervision, evaluation, and teacher development. The plan must be consistent with education outcomes that the school board determines. The plan must include ongoing staff development activities that contribute toward continuous improvement in achieving the following goals:
(1) improve student achievement of state and local education standards in all areas of the curriculum, including areas of regular academic and applied and experiential learning, by using research-based best practices methods;
(2) effectively meet the needs of a diverse student population, including at-risk children, children with disabilities, English learners, and gifted children, within the regular classroom, applied and experiential learning settings, and other settings;
(3) provide an inclusive curriculum for a racially, ethnically, linguistically, and culturally diverse student population that is consistent with the state education diversity rule and the district's education diversity plan;
(4) improve staff collaboration and develop mentoring and peer coaching programs for teachers new to the school or district;
(5) effectively teach and model violence prevention policy and curriculum that address early intervention alternatives, issues of harassment, and teach nonviolent alternatives for conflict resolution;
(6) effectively deliver digital and blended learning and curriculum and engage students with technology; and
(7) provide teachers and other members of site-based management teams with appropriate management and financial management skills.
(a) The district and site staff development committees shall write a report of staff development activities and expenditures for the previous year. The report, signed by the district superintendent and staff development chair, must include assessment and evaluation data indicating progress toward district and site staff development goals based on teaching and learning outcomes, including the percentage of teachers and other staff involved in instruction who participate in effective staff development activities under subdivision 3 as part of the district's comprehensive achievement and civic readiness report under section 120B.11, subdivision 5.
(b) The report must break down expenditures for:
(1) curriculum development and curriculum training programs; and
(2) staff development training models, workshops, and conferences, and the cost of releasing teachers or providing substitute teachers for staff development purposes.
The report also must indicate whether the expenditures were incurred at the district level or the school site level, and whether the school site expenditures were made possible by grants to school sites that demonstrate exemplary use of allocated staff development revenue. These expenditures must be reported using the uniform financial and accounting and reporting standards.