Everyone can use a little inspiration, and at Poway Unified School District, they have more than enough to go around. Poway’s mission, “Inspiring passion and preparing every student to thrive in college, career and life by providing personalized, rich and rigorous learning experiences,” is a tall order to be sure. But at Poway, they back up words with action. In fact, they have used the pandemic as a kind of a lightening rod to attract innovation and create action to deliver on their mission.
According to Dr. Jennifer Burks, Associate Superintendent of Technology and Innovation at Poway Unified School District, “Despite the pandemic, our district has continued to move forward with many innovations. During this presentation, we're going to highlight four of these initiatives that we have implemented over the past 18 months. Some of those have been taking longer in development, but really over the 18 months, these are the things that we've honed-in on, our Enduring Practices, our innovative professional development model, concurrent teaching, and our new K-8 virtual school, which we call Connect Academy. One of the positive outcomes that came from the pandemic is what we are calling Enduring Practices; these Enduring Practices are silver linings of virtual instruction that we have looked to carry over into the 21/22 school year. Teachers were able to continuously adapt to their new environment by growing in their technical skills, re-evaluating their practices and embracing a variety of tools and innovative strategies to best meet the needs of our students.”
You’ll also hear from Dr. Marian Kim Phelps, Superintendent, Poway Unified School District and Lana Nguyen, Director of Education Technology at Poway Unified School District. You won’t want to miss a minute of this inspiring and instructional video, with innovations that you can implement in your own school and district.
