Sustaining Staff
The major factor in sustaining teachers and other staff who venture into uncharted territory involving risk and extra work lies in meaningful incentives and supportive working environments:
- Stipends or other remuneration for extra planning or course development associated with the enterprise.
- Release time for dealing with possibly higher student loads and responding to e-mail and phone interaction with students.
- Recognition in front of their peers.
- Opportunity to participate in professional conferences
- Opportunity to train other teachers or otherwise show leadership
- Developing total staff buy-in
Rick Feutz, Technology Coordinator, Kent, WA, and Joe Kitchens, Superintendent, Western Heights, OK.
Comments from experienced staff:
Feutz, Technology Coordinator: "I really think that one of the first things that you need to do is reward the pioneers out there. Most school districts have adopted technology on the backs of their pioneers, the risk-takers and if you keep going, using them without some kind of reward, what happens is they go back to their classrooms and they'll be less likely to take risks. Get them involved in what you are doing with videoconferencing, make them the experts by providing them the guidance, the staff development and the opportunity, and they will be willing to take you even farther than they have. Don't let them shirk back into their classrooms. The problem with being a pioneer is that you take a lot of arrows and some of these people get burned out. Don't let that happen to them, because those are the people who are going to take you to the next level, and you want to make sure they're rewarded properly."
Kitchens, Superintendent: "I think also that we administrators are going to have to realize that we seriously have to think about how we are going to reward teachers for developing enhanced product, and using their technological skills to do that. We're going to have to consider that teachers who develop good instructional products are very valuable people to the school system and to the learners. We here in Oklahoma, and probably in the nation, will have to understand that when we get very good productive teachers who are able to produce good interactive instructional products, it's something that we reward. [We need] to put an incentive out there to provide teachers with the desire and motivation to develop very good products. I think some teachers who are some of the most creative people around, given an opportunity and an incentive, will make a difference. They are the ones who know what kids need in terms of instructional product."
Feutz, Technology Coordinator: "Unfortunately, when most districts go into this, they consider the computers, the network, the plastic and the wires as the resources, and they're not. Those things are very easy, all you have to have is money to buy those things. The most important resource in any school district is the staff who needs to deliver this. So with that in mind and with that philosophy, you put your time and monies into changing your culture. It best can be done by changing the language, having a unified vision that everyone can articulate, not just hung on the wall like a lot of mission statements, but a statement of mission, of what you're trying to do. After that's said, then you start talking about how much the box is going to cost, and how much for support. Because if you start there and you neglect the other side you will have technology but you will never reach an appropriate use and an efficient use of technology in that classroom.
"I think it goes back to having this mission or having this vision and having your whole staff be able to articulate it and know what it is. What we've done is centralize our staff development class. We took a look at what our districts needs were and built our staff development around our core, and it was also built around the idea that if you are going to change that culture, you're going to have to change the conversation. At every opportunity and in every staff development class, we took time to talk about where we were trying to go, what we were trying to accomplish, and I think about 5 years later you can see the results. People out there, even though they may be struggling to get there, at least they know where they want to go. An organization that knows where it wants to go will get there. One that doesn't have that kind of culture will wander for along time."
Kitchens, Superintendent: "When we started this initiative, about 70% of our teachers had no computer training. We started out training them in basic computer literacy and were offering 65 to 70 hours of training a year after school. We were paying our teachers using federal funds and some local funds to attend training sessions and those sessions have been extended each year. Now they have been extended into summer programs. Where we initially used teachers within a building to train [other] teachers, we now find that they are becoming so prolific that they actually need more advanced training. We have to go outside now and get advanced trainers."