Conversation #12 was with the retired Superintendent of Old Saybrook Schools in Connecticut, Jan Perruccio. Jan left her Superintendent position after winning Connecticut Superintendent of the year honors in 2023. I really enjoyed Jan's perspective. The final paragraph of this post is one of my favorite insights thus far!

"When I’m making a professional learning purchase, I’m looking for something that has been peer reviewed, researched, and vetted officially. Successful professional learning trainers should be able to support out schools in a few key ways:

1. Help our schools build independent learners
2. Stay connected and interested in nurturing a longer term relationship
3. And, model an openness to feedback.

One of my biggest pet peeves was when a vendor or partner said they were going to personalize professional learning for our district, but then they gave us something canned without offering an opportunity for staff or leadership feedback.

Professional learning needs to be active and participatory. Presenters should be asking teachers and leaders to bring in their own best practices, resources, and dilemmas. One of our recent successes came when a vendor met with teacher leaders ahead of engaging with the full staff. These meetings surfaced feedback for the professional learning vendor and improved the teacher leaders' understanding of the content. Teacher leaders and the vendor then incorporated this feedback and learning into co-observations in classrooms, and led to the development of strategies that the teacher leaders could then train the rest of the staff to implement. This capacity-building model helped us create in-house coaching expertise."