A smaller school district like Manassas City Public Schools in Virginia can enjoy a strong sense of community and collaboration between teachers and students. But even with a highly qualified teaching staff, Dr. Michaelene Meyer recognized the need for an efficient, ongoing professional development program. Read about how they integrated PD 360 into their PD goals and activities and how it helped them integrate the ideas in their classrooms.

1. Case Study
HENRICO COUNTY ARTESIA Lamesa ISD HENRICO COUNTY ARTESIA
School Improvement Network
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Small Virginia ISD HENRICO COUNTY ARTESIA Lamesa ISD
HENRICO COUNTY ARTESIA Lamesa ISD HENRICO COUNTY ARTESIA
Provides Relevant
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PD for All Teachers
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COUNTY ARTESIA Lamesa ISD HENRICO COUNTY ARTESIA Lamesa ISD
MANASSAS CITY PUBLIC SCHOOLS, VIRGINIA
“Teachers can no longer use the excuse that there is no
relevancy or significance for them in our professional
development program. A large variety of options is the
beauty of PD 360 and there is relevance for everyone.”
FOCUS
Dr. Michaelene Meyer
Deputy Superintendent of Curriculum and Instruction
Manassas City Public Schools, Virginia Even with an extraordinary teaching staff, MCPS has
an ongoing desire to continually better its professional
DISTRICT PROFILE development (PD) in order to provide excellent student
education. This means giving its teachers the most
comprehensive PD available.
Manassas City Public Schools (MCPS) is located in
Manassas City, Virginia, “a small community that Dr. Michaelene Meyer, MCPS Deputy Superintendent of
provides big opportunities to its residents.” As a district Curriculum and Instruction, wanted to hike up the quality
of 6,866 students in ten schools, its size is also a as well as streamline the PD process. She looked for
plus and allows the staff to get to know the children a job-embedded resource that teachers could access
as individuals and develop personal education plans immediately when they needed it and experience
to make sure that those individual needs are met. immediate success.
The district benefits from all the advantages a smaller
city offers and feels a true sense of community with a
collaborative bond between home and school that works SOLUTION
to ensure the success of every student.
Manassas City Public Schools embraces its mission Dr. Meyer had been a dedicated user of School
to educate and develop productive, responsible, and Improvement Network’s The Video Journal of Education
contributing citizens of local and global communities. It video products for many years. When she was introduced
is a school system that enjoys diversity as a challenging to PD 360, also from School Improvement Network, she
and balanced learning experience. The dedicated and knew she had found a high-quality answer for MCPS.
highly qualified staff is equipped with ample resources
and vital partnerships with family, community, business,
and government. ABOUT PD 360
MCPS is very proud of its outstanding instructional staff. PD 360 is the leading on-demand professional learning
resource for educators with over 700,000 subscribers.
•18 National Board Certified Teachers
Teachers, administrators, professional learning
•100% Highly Qualified Teachers (per No Child Left communities, coaches, etc., have access to over 1,400
Behind requirements) indexed and searchable video segments that present
real, best-practice classroom examples. Each segment
•52.3% Licensed staff with post-graduate degrees includes content from respected educational experts
www.schoolimprovement.com | www.PD360.com

2. such as Michael Fullan, Rick DuFour, Doug Reeves, > Teachers Who Struggle
Rick Stiggins, and many others. PD 360 can be used Principals were trained and are now helping teachers
to create a structured learning experience for an who struggle by suggesting specific PD 360 segments
individual teacher, professional learning community, or that show what best classroom practices look like in
entire school. It bridges the gap between training and needed areas. Each teacher’s usage as well as their
classroom implementation with job-embedded follow- answers to Reflection and Follow-Up Questions can be
up, tracking, and reflection tools. PD 360 also gives tracked by the administration to follow growth.
educators access to an online community of teaching
professionals that allows interaction and collaboration > Walk Throughs
either within a district or across the United States and Getting principals into the classrooms has a huge
around the world. See a demonstration at impact on teacher training. As principals do classroom
www.pd360.com. walk-throughs, they can email specific PD 360 segment
links that are relevant to the instructional needs of
DRIVING USAGE AND IMPLEMENTATION the teachers while providing easy and effective, job-
embedded follow-up. Being able to quickly provide
One year into its use, Dr. Meyer has already put many instant remediation on many issues has been beneficial
applications of PD 360 into place, such as: to both principals and teachers alike.
> Group Trainings
GOAL: ACTION:
PD 360 makes it easy to personalize group training.
First Year All Educators Required to Watch The digitized Facilitator Guides that accompany video
Registered on Two Segments & programs provide assistance as district facilitators
PD 360 Answer Reflection prepare training sessions. Video segments are shared
Questions with a group of teachers and PD 360’s automated
reflection questions are assigned to help teachers
Second Year English Language Everyone Watch implement new strategies. The trainer can read teachers’
Learners – A and Complete answers and provide suggestions and feedback.
District Wide Whole ELL
Approach Program & Use in Each department chair asked to be trained in PD 360
PLC’s, Forums, & and are now using segments to help share information in
Faculty Meetings department meetings.
> Professional Learning Communities
Third Year Implementation Principals Make PD 360 supports PLCs and gives them a solid resource
and Targeted Building Level to study. PLCs watch a PD 360 video segment and
Goals Plan to Align with discuss how to apply the practices in their classrooms.
District Plan The accompanying digitized Facilitator Guides provide
group activities, discussion questions, lesson plans, and
graphic organizers.
> English Language Learners > Teacher Certification
MCPS is having great success with its ELL training Dr. Meyer is working on and is excited to put into action
framework. During the coming school year, MCPS will be a program for teacher certification wherein PD 360
using PD 360 for an all-inclusive district wide approach time viewed and Reflection Questions answered will be
to its 38% ELL population. PD 360 ELL segments will be tracked and applied as credit.
used in faculty meetings, PLC’s, and forums to educate
and start discussions on strategies and accommodations > Interactive Learning Communities
that actively involve ELL students in learning. Through Interactive Learning Communities, teachers
present each other with implementation ideas,
> New Teacher Training participate in discussion forums, upload lesson plans,
MCPS has re-vamped its entire beginning teaching and share web links to helpful resources. Learning
program with the use of PD 360 integrated into Communities can be created as public or private
seminars, with follow-up guides for the PLC meetings domains in which teachers and administrators can share
they hold between seminars. Because Dr. Meyer feels it best practices, learn from one another, and eliminate
is important to train new teachers to use PD 360, they classroom isolation regardless of location.
are immediately introduced to it as a teaching resource.
When there is an issue in their classrooms, they can be
directed to segments of programs such as Classroom
Management, Differentiated Instruction, and many more.
PD 360 is also a good base for helping new teachers
understand implementation of the district and school
goals.
www.schoolimprovement.com | www.PD360.com

3. BENEFITS > Job Embedded
Professional development should not be identical for
each teacher but should be responsive to a teacher’s
MCPS is experiencing many advantages as part of having day-to-day practices in school and student needs. As
the PD 360 package. questions and situations arise in classrooms, teachers
can instantly find answers in PD 360 to improve teaching
> Cost Effective
and give support when needed instead of waiting for
PD 360 has been very cost-effective for MCPS. Costing
district workshops. The wide variety of content in PD 360
much less than traditional professional development,
ensures that teachers of every experience level can find
it can be purchased with a variety of funding sources
individualized help when they need it.
available to districts and schools, including Title I, II, III,
IV, V, VII, state funds, foundation funds, federal and state > Relevant Topics
grant monies, math funds, reading funds, technology New, quality content is continually being added to the
funds, etc. For example, MCPS has been able to pay for up-to-date PD 360 library providing a resource that helps
PD 360 with Title II funds. teachers continue to grow professionally. PD 360 has
programs dealing with nearly every educational initiative
> Elementary and Secondary Programs
of the past two decades.
Dr. Meyer was delighted to find a PD resource that
offered both Elementary-Focused and Secondary- > Research Based and Best Practices
Centered programs. This provides instruction that is PD 360 programs are always research-based and
geared to each teacher’s classroom level. classroom-proven, dealing with nearly every educational
initiative of the past two decades. Each program shows
> Great Educator Response
real classrooms from around the country using the best
Teacher response to PD 360 has been excellent. As they
teaching methods.
are introduced to it, educators generally start using the
easy search ability feature of the PD 360 website to > A Common Voice
research more topics. PD 360 encourages consistency in a common language
and practice. The Focus Objectives support a more
> User Capacity
efficient, focused commonality with all educators in the
With one price, educators have unlimited access to PD
district.
360 and can view segments and programs as many
times as they wish and as often as they need. > Individual Accountability
Teachers are empowered to take control of their own
> Accessible
growth by having everything they need to improve their
Because PD 360 is an online and on-demand solution,
teaching in one place. Administrators can ensure that PD
teachers in the system can access it anytime and
happens consistently with PD 360’s integrated tracking,
anywhere they have the Internet. They can log on at
reporting, and follow-up.
home as well as at work, encouraging teacher education
on their own time schedule. > Easy-to-Use Search Features
With hundreds of fully indexed and searchable learning
> Individual Accountability
segments, teachers and administrators can easily find
With PD 360, teachers are responsible for their own
the answers they require. PD 360 has everything MCPS
professional growth and administrators can ensure
teachers need to immediately improve their teaching and
that it happens consistently with PD 360’s integrated
implement the best classroom practices.
tracking, reporting, and follow-up. This strengthens
teacher commitment which translates into positive > Real Classroom Examples
changes in the classroom. Dr. Meyer has been pleased with the wide variety of real
classrooms from across the country that are shown in
> State Approval
every PD 360 program so that teachers can actually see
The Virginia Department of Education is very familiar
how to implement best practices in their own classroom
with School Improvement Network’s PD 360 and has
management.
been supportive and favorable of its use in districts.
> Large Library of Content “New teachers and teachers who are struggling often
Over 120 respected education experts are available at can’t visualize themselves putting best practices into
each MCPS teacher’s fingertips whenever they need action. PD 360 is a link for bringing in visual professional
them. Dr. Meyer no longer has the frustration of not development, which starts meaningful conversations
sending everyone to conferences because of the high such as “What does this practice mean to us?” and “How
costs associated with them. Now educators do not have can we implement it in our classrooms?”
to wait to attend workshops and conferences yet can
learn from the best authorities. Dr. Michaelene Meyer
Deputy Superintendent of Curriculum and Instruction
Manassas City Public Schools, Virginia
www.schoolimprovement.com | www.PD360.com

4. > Tracking Features
Administrators can oversee PD usage with PD 360’s
integrated tracking, reporting, and follow-up and will
know which areas need extra reinforcement. The logs
they are providing are really terrific in terms of how the
videos are encouraging discussion and learning.
> Real Experts
Over 120 respected education experts are available
at each MCPS teacher’s fingertips whenever needed.
Educators no longer have to wait to attend conferences,
or pay the high costs associated with them, to learn from
acclaimed authorities.
CONCLUSION
Dr. Meyer is insuring that Manassas City Public Schools,
the small district in the small town, will continue to enjoy
big benefits from PD 360, the most all-inclusive and
effective teacher professional development obtainable.
“We have more to learn on how to utilize the benefits of
the program, but one step at a time.”
Dr. Michaelene Meyer
Deputy Superintendent of Curriculum and Instruction
Manassas City Public Schools, Virginia
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