Professional Learning Specialist

Job Description

Job Summary

The School District of Philadelphia is committed to having schools staffed with great teachers and principals. Professional Learning Specialists are responsible for supporting the continuous development of teachers, principals, and support staff. Professional Learning Specialists design, align, and facilitate, professional learning opportunities for educators throughout the School District of Philadelphia (SDP). Work involves formulating and implementing plans to meet the short-term and long-term needs of the District's teaching and administrative staff.

Work additionally involves determining training and personnel development needs on a learning network, school and individual level. Professional Learning Specialists are tasked with providing high-quality professional growth opportunities that will enhance educators' leadership, cultural competency, organizational, communication, problem-solving, and outcomes-oriented skills. Their work also involves supporting the District's curriculum, assessment, and instructional goals. Supports the District, network, and schools in delivering a seamless system of comprehensive support in alignment with the District's Equity-based Multi-Tiered Systems of Support (MTSS) Model.

Works to ensure equitable services to students and expands existing support structure for delivery of all levels of MTSS implementation within schools by collaborating with school administrators, teachers, and support staff to ensure that MTSS is effectively integrated to address the academic, behavioral, and social-motional needs of all students.

Essential Functions

• Designs and facilitates professional learning and development sessions and courses on a variety of topics to support the designated programmatic framework.

• Conducts professional learning and development sessions by learning network, grade band, and school type to bolster educator effectiveness and student progress.

• Research new trends in education in an effort to keep staff aligned with the Pedagogical shifts and SDP instructional practices.

• Thoughtfully creates customized professional learning modules for educators.

• Support District initiatives.

• Leads content programming, logistics, and communication for large-scale District-wide professional learning programming.

• Coaches leadership teams, teacher leaders, and teachers in the implementation of professional learning.

• Develops plans for measuring the impact of professional learning; creates tools for collecting data; analyzes that data to make in-year and end of year programmatic decisions.

• Hires and develops part-time employees who support facilitation and logistics in District-wide programming.

• Utilizes extensive knowledge of the MTSS process, content-based instructional supports and evidence-based instructional strategies, and the District's expectations and frameworks related to learning outcomes in day-to-day functions.

• Coaches school-level teams and provides support for effective team functioning.

• Maintains communication from the central office to networks and schools and connects the team to necessary resources for successful implementation of MTSS.

• Conducts school visits and consistently monitors MTSS implementation, intervention data, and instructional programs to ensure timely, appropriate support across all tiers.

• Makes data-driven recommendations and monitors school-based MTSS team meetings to support effective interventions.

• Monitors MTSS programming to ensure students receive timely and appropriate support in Tiers 1, 2, & 3.

• Ensures that the tiered supports comply with the District's framework, policies, procedures, and mandated guidelines.

• Develops, designs, and delivers professional development on MTSS and procedures for central and academic division offices, principals, leadership teams, and school staff.

• Assesses individual school MTSS team functionality and makes recommendations for improvement.

• Monitors the meetings of the school-based MTSS teams; supports the teams by offering tools to assist in such areas as strategic interventions, development of student plans, and progress monitoring; ensures the…