Professional Learning Specialist (ELA)

Title: Professional Learning Specialist (Leadership Development)

The School District of Philadelphia is committed to becoming the fastest improving District in  the country and transforming the educational opportunities it offers to our city’s more than  194,000 students. The District seeks leaders who have a passion for working with schools and  communities who are committed to ensuring all students achieve. Serving a population as  diverse as ours requires creativity, commitment and vision. Will you join us? 

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-emotional needs of all  students. 

All Specialties 

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. 

Academic Services Literacy K-8 Specialty 

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

• Plans and administers the implementation of instructional strategies to support  academic achievement aligned to Board of Education Goals and Guardrails.

• Conducts professional learning and development sessions for principals, leadership  teams, and teachers based on data informed needs. 

• Assists school-based instructional leadership teams in analyzing data and creating an action plan to respond to data analysis. 

• Debriefs with teachers, school leadership teams, and academic staff to analyze and support the instructional practices in schools. 

• Visits schools and classrooms and provides support to improve instructional and  assessment strategies through instructional rounds and other informal visits.

• Thoughtfully creates customized professional learning modules for educators.

• 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. 

• Develops and implements Common Planning Time as a District strategy.