Sprints

You've watched them transform. Fifteen teachers who volunteered for your new professional development initiative have completely changed how they approach their classrooms. They're energized, their students are engaged, and the results speak for themselves. But now you face the question that keeps every Director of Professional Development awake at night: How do you scale this success to the other two hundred teachers in your district without destroying the very magic that ma

You've seen it happen again and again. Teachers leave a professional development session energized, armed with new strategies and genuine excitement about trying something different. You've invested time, budget, and resources into bringing them quality learning experiences. Yet within weeks—sometimes days—those innovative approaches vanish like morning fog, and everyone slips back into familiar patterns. If you're a Director of Professional Development, this cycle isn't just

You've watched it happen again.  Another expensive professional development initiative promising transformational results. Consultants flew in. Workshops were conducted. Resources were distributed. Teachers nodded politely, filled out their feedback forms, and then... nothing changed. The problem wasn't the content or even the delivery. The problem was the foundation itself, built on the quicksand of deficit thinking that dooms most professional development from the very begi

Start with direction: outcomes, practices, cohort — then build support around them. You've sat through the budget meeting. You've defended your professional development line items. You've watched your superintendent's expression shift from interested to skeptical when you mentioned "teacher growth opportunities." And somewhere in the back of your mind, there's that nagging voice asking: what if this becomes another initiative that fizzles out by the end of the trimester? The