Professional Development Activity Description and Summary

The activity I completed was a professional development workshop. This particular workshop was focused on attendance in the New York State school system. It provided a plethora of information bout the various facets of attendance, from how to accurately report it to different stratifications of attendance -- by day and by period, for example. Each of these stratifications includes a different form on which to record the attendance of students.

The workshop was extremely comprehensive in that the information it provided applied to public schools throughout the state of New York. It was attended by numerous other educational professionals from the surrounding areas of the five boroughs. In addition to yielding a considerable amount of information about how to professionally and accurately record attendance, it also provided a good opportunity to network with others, and to learn about their own challenges and solutions to the various facets of taking and maintaining attendance.

Program Outcome Rationale

The overarching themes of this activity were to reinforce the knowledge necessary to conduct attendance accurately. As such, the workshop also focused on the myriad reasons of why taking attendance is a vital aspect of working in a public school system. Doing so not only benefits students and their parents by providing information about their rate of actually appearing in class and (presumably) involving themselves in the learning process (which creates positive home/school relationships), but also benefits the school in emergency situations in which it might be necessary to switch locations. In this case communication...

Taking attendance is a necessary part of strengthening the relationship between school employees, parents and the surrounding community. These themes certainly correlate to the rationale for the program outcome, which is School and Community Leadership. The outcome indicators for this program are to:
Build strong community relations by modeling and promoting equity, fairness, and respect among faculty, staff, students, parents and community leaders.

Provide opportunities for stakeholders to develop and use skills in collaboration, shared decision making and responsibility for the purpose of maintaining a comprehensive program of positive home/school relationships.

Acknowledge and respect the goals, values, and aspirations of diverse family and community groups by engaging the support of business, philanthropic, political, social, and civic or faith-based organizations and other resources to enrich the school's climate, culture and diverse learning infrastructure.

Maintain a broad communication network throughout the school and community by using a wide variety of print and electronic media modes whiles establishing a high level of visibility and active involvement among stakeholders (American College of Education, 2013).

Professional Development Planning

The area of need identified by me and which relates to my school is accurately maintaining attendance records for students throughout the entire school day when they are involved in multiple classes taught by multiple instructors. Attending the aforementioned professional development workshop…