BPS-BTU Professional Learning Grants Symposium TOMORROW
Join us to celebrate and reflect on the first year of the BPS/BTU Professional Learning Grant program, where school-based teams were awarded $5,000 grants to pursue teacher-led learning projects. Representatives of the four grantees will share the progress of their work and give and receive feedback. This program is under consideration as a model for the newly established Teacher Leadership Fund. RSVP and read project overviews. Join us tomorrow, Wednesday, October 18 from 4:30-7 PM at the BTU.
D. Watkins: Powerful Literacy for Authentic Change and Survival
The BTU is proud to partner with Boston Teachers Off Script to present an evening with D. Watkins, editor, professor, and author of books including The Beast Side: Living and Dying While Black in America and The Cook Up: A Crack Rock Memoir. Professor Watkins will use his journey from the streets of East Baltimore to the halls of academia to show the power of literacy and education as a positive agent of change in his personal life, and his way to “give back to the neighborhoods that my friends and I tore apart.” Registration info coming soon. Thursday, October 26 from 6-8 PM at the BTU. Download a flyer for posting.
Fund for Teachers: Design Your Own Transformative PD
The BTU is a proud local partner of Fund for Teachers. Applications are now open for this year’s cycle. The Boston program is open to BPS teachers and teachers in Boston charter schools. Teachers may apply for grants of $5,000 (individuals) or $10,000 (teams) to design professional learning experiences that inspire and sustain them as people and professionals. For more information, if you have questions, or are in need of support, please contact Paul.
MTEL Drop-In Sessions
Come by the BTU for a 1:1 consultation about your MTEL support needs and how you can best be supported. Drop-in sessions will be held on:
- Monday, October 23 from 3:30-5:30 PM
- Thursday, October 26 from 3:30-5:30 PM
Whether you can make it or not to the drop-in sessions, please complete this short form to help us understand your needs, or email Paul.
Committee on Teachers Assigned in SPC Roles
The next meeting of the committee on teachers assigned in SPC roles will be held on Thursday, October 19 from 4:30-6 PM here at the BTU. This meeting is for ALL members. RSVP by emailing Paul.
What Makes a Quality School?
The BTU and BPS, along with five other Massachusetts districts are members of the Mass. Consortium for Innovative Education Assessment (MCIEA) where we work on better ways to assess student learning and school quality. We are seeking your and help from across the state with a series of benchmarking surveys to help us set targets for the measures in our school quality framework. Unlike the current norm-referenced accountability system—in which any school with scores appearing in the bottom 20 percent of all schools are determined to be poorly performing—the MCIEA framework will be criterion-referenced, using the views and perspectives of its stakeholders as a baseline. Please help us by completing one of these randomized surveys and enter for a chance to win a $100 gift card. Your voice is critical to this effort.
BPS/OIIT and BTU Back to School with Google Basics PD
Learn the fundamentals of the Google tools offered to BPS educators and how to use them effectively with your students in the classroom. Course sites throughout Boston neighborhoods at various times/days after school in November. Choose the session closest to you or the most convenient and join us to learn new engaging ways to utilize technology in your classroom. Please bring your L4L or other device. Register today.