Teachers taking professional development into their own hands in Jefferson County

FINALLY!WDRB just ran a short article, “Teachers create, attend inaugural 'EdCampJCPS'” that really caught my attention. It talks about teachers in Jefferson County taking professional development into their own hands, running their own seminar program where teachers can share success and failure programs with their colleagues.

Now, this is encouraging. Teachers acting as real professionals do!

I hope this effort is expanded across Kentucky and that the JCPS effort is opened to teachers from other districts, too.

In fact, this could be a great way for the JCPS to spend some of its own professional development dollars.

Also, I didn't see any mention of teachers' union involvement. That needs to happen, too, if it hasn't already started and was just overlooked by the WDRB report. There needs to be more to a real professional organization than just wage and benefits bargaining.

Anyway, I have been pushing for this professional activity to start within our educator community (see here and here for several examples), and it looks like this idea might finally be catching on in Kentucky.