School Design PD Catalog

The following opportunities will help members of our national school network learn to implement our school model with fidelity, exploring our 38 core practices for transforming curriculum, instruction, school culture, assessment, and leadership. 

Before registering for professional development, please review our policies and logistics.

Site Seminars

Site seminars are carefully structured two-day events that demonstrate implementation of the design principles and core practices of EL Education. Credentialed network schools hosting site seminars implement the EL Education model at a high level and have proven impact in terms of high levels of student achievement. Leaders and staff exhibit teaching and leadership skills that exemplify the EL Education model.

Site seminars are focused, purposeful, and intensive. They highlight the school-wide implementation of critical aspects of the EL Education model that the school does particularly well, in addition to demonstrating strong overall implementation of the EL Education approach.

During the seminar, participants visit classes for long periods of time; meet with administrators, teachers, students, and parents; and examine exemplary student work. They collect observations and make sense of these observations in small and large groups.

Institutes

School Design Institutes are designed to be a powerful introduction to EL Education’s Core Practices for educators new to our whole school model. In each institute, participants engage as “students” in a slice of a content- and literacy-rich learning expedition. They experience the practices that characterize high-achieving, engaging classrooms throughout our school network. The practices focus on developing a strong classroom culture, engaging students in daily assessment, and using effective instructional practices (e.g., building background knowledge, strategies for helping students read closely, vocabulary work, numeracy, fieldwork, using experts, and scaffolding to create high-quality work).

Leadership Development

Throughout 25 years of our work with schools, we have seen time and time again: when schools invest in developing shared leadership and focus on leading for impact on a daily basis, they significantly increase their overall capacity for improvement. 

Shared leadership provides an opportunity for aspiring principals to learn and practice skills in the context of authentic leadership, creating a pipeline of leaders ready to step into the principal role when needed.