The District supports professional development of its certified staff through the maintenance of a professional development committee as well as assistance programs for new teachers and resource programs for experienced teachers.
Professional Development Committee
The purpose of the committee is to identify instructional concerns and remedies; assist beginning teachers with the implementation of their professional development plans; serve as consultant at a personal teacher's request; arrange training programs for mentors; assess faculty needs; develop in‑service opportunities for school staff; and provide District administration with suggestions, ideas and recommendations concerning instruction.
Committee Composition
The committee shall have no more than fifteen (15) members with membership on the committee representative of disciplines and attendance centers.
Committee members shall be certificated staff members with at least three (3) years of teaching experience and at least two (2) years in the Carthage R-IX School District. Professional Development Committee members will be selected for three (3) year terms. Terms shall be staggered so that approximately one third of the committee will be new each year. New members shall be selected no later than January 31st annually, training will be accomplished by March 31st, and service will begin on April 1st.
Committee members shall be selected by the classroom teachers, media specialists and counselors of the District. Administrators may be selected to serve on the committee but may not participate in the selection process. The Superintendent/designee shall serve as an ex-officio member of the Professional Development Committee.
New Teacher Assistance Program
Each inexperienced teacher employed by the District will be assigned a mentor by the building principal. Mentors will be required to possess at least five (5) years of teaching experience and have received or be willing to complete mentor training. Mentors will work closely with their assigned new teachers during the teachers' first two (2) years upon request or at the direction of the building principal during the mentoring period.
New teachers, with the assistance of their mentors, will prepare professional development plans. The plans will be consistent with the evaluation criteria and will establish plans of development for the teachers' first two (2) years of teaching.
Local Business Externships for Professional Development
Local business externship means an experience in which a teacher, supervised by the District, gains practical experience in a business located within the District through observations and interactions with employers and employees who are working on issues related to subjects taught by the teacher. Any hours spent in a local business externship will count as contact hours for professional development.
Local Business Externships for Credit
Teacher externships are practical experiences in which a teacher, supervised by the District, gains experience at a business located in Missouri through observation and interaction with employers and employees. Requirements for teacher externships to be considered the equivalent to graduate level credit hours for salary schedule purposes will be developed by the Department of Economic Development and Department of Elementary and Secondary Education by July 1, 2020. Teachers who satisfied their state graduate credit equivalences will receive appropriate credit on the District’s salary schedule. Unless reauthorized by the General Assembly, the teacher externship program will expire on September 2024.