Westlawn Elementary School has been awarded the Outstanding Campus Professional Learning Program Award from Learning Forward Texas.

It happened.during the recent Texas Association of School Administrators Mid-Winter Conference in Austin, TX.

The award is presented to one campus per year based upon their efforts to focus on campus professional learning programs which are results-driven and designed to impact student achievement.  The school’s efforts will be highlighted during the Learning Forward Texas Annual Conference in June.

Under the direction of Principal Taryn Chambers Givan, Westlawn Elementary School has gone from a four-year “Improvement Required” campus to a “Met Standard” campus in one year.  Givan, and her team,  knew that in order to be successful they needed to build a teaching staff who understood how to plan quality instruction, deliver the instruction in ways that every child learned and when a student was not able to learn or master the content know what to do in order to make the learning happen.

A dynamic culture of growth and learning centered around job-embedded professional learning opportunities, which in turn would create student improvement and success, was intentionally designed.  Staff became immersed in the Learning Forward Standards for Professional Learning which includes:

  • Learning Communities committed to continuous improvement, collective responsibility and goal alignment;
  • Skillful Leaders who develop capacity, advocate and create support systems for professional learning;
  • Prioritizing, monitoring, and coordinating resources for educator learning;
  • Integrating theories, research and models of human learning (learning designs) to achieve intended outcomes;
  • Applying research on change and sustaining support for implementation of professional learning for long-term change;
  • Aligning outcomes with educator performance and student curriculum standards.

Learning Forward Texas is an educational non-profit association of learning educators committed to one vision in K-12 education:  Excellent teaching and learning every day.  To realize that vision Learning Forward pursues its mission to build the capacity of learning leaders to establish and sustain highly effective professional learning.  It is the only professional association in Texas devoted exclusively to those who work in educator professional development.

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