Ackerley Partner School Network: Activities Archive
Ackerley Partnership for Teacher Development: The Network Summer Institute Summary
Center for Urban Horticulture, Seattle, WA | August 18, 2005
The Ackerley Partnership for Teacher Development: The Network held its Summer Institute on August 18, 2005 with 18 of its 19 network schools and the University of Washington at the Center for Urban Horticulture, Seattle, WA. There were over 100 people who attended including teachers, school and district administrators, union representatives, and university faculty and staff. The objectives of the day were to plan work for the upcoming school year, to deepen relationships among the school teams and the University of Washington participants, to clarify the roles of network schools in the Teachers for a New Era (TNE) initiative, the Washington Center for Teaching and Learning (WCTL), and the UW’s Teacher Education Program (TEP), and to determine Governance and communication structures for The Network.
Great feedback was generated from a day well spent on gathering information, generating ideas, and meeting other Network teams. Various opportunities for site and cross-site discussions were built into the program. In the morning, teams were asked to review the first draft of an Organizing Principles handbook that will be revised by a Committee throughout the upcoming year. Ideas on future work were generated through break out sessions that covered new teacher support, inquiry, video traces, and governance. In the afternoon, school sites collaborated with their teams to share reflections from the morning break out sessions, to identify primary learning goals, to consider ways the Network might help achieve the goals, and to indicate school site expertise that might be shared across the Network.
Several guest speakers shared information about the importance of our collaborative work. Bill McDiarmid, College of Education, and TNE Senior Fellow, and Juan Guerra, English Dept. and Co-Director, TNE shared the emerging vision of Partner Schools and the impact of participation by a tripartite model that includes Public Schools, College of Arts and Sciences, and College of Education. Dr. Thelma Jackson, member of the OSPI sponsored Multi-Ethnic Think Tank and founder of Foresight Consulting Services served as our guest speaker and shared next steps on her work with schools to "Close the Achievement Gap". She reinforced the need for "cultural competence" training within school districts to better prepare P-12 staff to address the diverse cultural needs of their students.
It was truly a privilege to bring so many individuals together to discuss the ways in which we can collaboratively have a positive influence on teaching and learning. Next steps for the Network: (1) scheduling of first meeting of the Network Council, including Network Liaisons from each school, UW representatives, and other interested members of the Network; (2) begin to make decisions regarding governance structure; (3) revisions to Organizing Principles by voluntary committee; (4) Marisa Bier collects articles from schools to begin the next issue of the APTD Network Newsletter; (5) a refined Mentor and Early Career Teacher inquiry proposal (Survive and Thrive); and (6) BACK TO SCHOOL!!!