Mason City Schools on Monday detailed a new districtwide professional-learning program called Staff Journeys that will offer yearlong, sustained training for every staff role, including bus drivers, nurses and paraprofessionals. Superintendent Doctor Cooper introduced the program and said it was built from staff input and piloted last year.

School leaders said Staff Journeys gives employees a choice of 14 learning pathways — from foundational literacy and math instruction to interdisciplinary study and use of artificial intelligence — plus an option to design a custom project pathway. “We are a community of learners,” Tracy Carson, who led the presentation, said, adding the program emphasizes that “the heart of personalized learning is the person.”

The program will roll out in September and begins with a districtwide learning day the board called Comic Con, a kickoff that included a nationally recognized speaker. Doctor Cooper said the Mason Schools Foundation provided a grant to bring in AJ Juliani, whose work on engagement and distraction informed sessions about classroom practice and AI. The district said roughly eight staff-created project groups will pursue work in specialized areas such as performing arts.

District leaders described two standing teams that will steward the initiative: fusion teams to shepherd immediate priorities and “futures teams” of teacher leaders to pilot innovations and surface grant opportunities. Doctor Brennan and other administrators said the approach is intended to sustain learning across the school year rather than concentrating training into single workshops.

The board did not take formal policy action on the program at Monday’s meeting. Administrators said they will report progress to the board in coming months and that some pathway work will connect to district objectives and grant-funded experiments.

Why it matters: The program covers every staff role and links professional growth to district strategy, signaling a longer-term investment in instructional practice and staff retention.

For now: Staff Journeys begins in September; the district will provide updates on participation, outcomes and any future budget implications.