Cultural Competency Finale

So my final day of professional development training in what I now forever will call cultural competency was last Friday, and for me was the least meaningful of the three days.  For most of the day, the presenter helped the audience to see the steps to have systemic application of the concepts for a school wide or school district wide implementation - a school improvement effort if you will.

The problem is that in school districts the size of Rockridge, a sustained school improvement effort is virtually impossible.  The main issues as I see them is lack of funding and turnover.  Lack of funding is fairly obvious...not enough money is thrown at the effort to create a lasting implementation.  Turnover results in part to the frequent turnover of state mandates.  The mandate that comes from state leaders this year will be gone next year, only to be replaced by a different or "improved" mandate the next year.  Another turnover issue, though, also involves school boards, principals, and superintendents.  At a school district of our size, those folks just aren't around for too long.  Our principal is now is more of the abnormal than the norm.  Administrators and school board members are normally around 3-5 years, and then its a new set of philosophies that emerge that think the last school improvement needs changed to something better.

So between lack of funding and turnover, real sustained improvement really is in the hands of the classroom teachers that value a particular emphasis.  And when I retire, my replacement may have a completely different take on the value of cultural competency.

On the other hand, I really enjoyed this professional development series.  It confirmed some ideas for me and gave me some new ideas to mull over.  I had a chance to hear others speak and see an awesome presenter carefully turn a group of educators mostly unfamiliar with each other into folks who were willing to share views and feelings and ideas - often about very difficult topics.

If that's the last formal professional development I attend before I retire, it was a good one to end on.