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Teacher facilitators lead districtwide push to deepen student engagement in Spring Lake Park Schools
Summary
District staff told the school board that a network of teacher facilitators is leading monthly professional learning and classroom implementation aimed at personalizing instruction and boosting engagement across grades K–12.
At a Spring Lake Park Schools board meeting, district leaders and teachers described a yearlong initiative that trains classroom teachers to serve as teacher facilitators and lead small-group professional learning aimed at deepening student engagement and personalizing instruction.
District Director of Learning Design and Student Engagement Melissa Olsen and Learning and Innovation Coordinator for Literacy Amy Bierlin told the board the program recruited dozens of teacher facilitators across elementary and secondary schools and emphasized learning design, literacy integration and teacher-led professional learning. "Our teacher facilitators come together once a month to learn together, and prepare to lead learning at their buildings," Olsen said.
The program, Olsen and Bierlin said, was open to any teacher who volunteered; it now includes teacher facilitators drawn from multiple grade levels and content areas. Bierlin described four primary facilitator roles: engage in the learning first; develop facilitation and design skills; deepen leadership practice aligned to the district approach; and implement and share professional learning outcomes with colleagues.
Several teacher facilitators described classroom results and how the model changed professional learning at the school level. Diana Fazenero, a second-grade teacher at Woodcrest Spanish Immersion, said translating modules into Spanish and offering teachers a choice of language increased participation: "Inviting teachers to be that face, to be that facilitator has opened an opportunity for other teachers to say, I also wanna participate." Christina Hedstrom, a teacher at Centerview, said vertical, small-group planning across grade bands helped teams connect literacy and engagement strategies: "We are learning from one another, and this is positively impacting student learning." Angela Scogi, a seventh-grade math teacher at Westwood Middle School, said the work led her to collect student interest surveys and try activities students requested: "If you're asking for feedback, make sure that you're using the feedback."
High-school teachers reported similar shifts. Karen Coutts, a technology, engineering and design teacher, said collaborative facilitator planning allowed singletons in pathway courses to connect across buildings and improve recruitment into high-school pathways. Ninth-grade language arts teacher and curriculum lead Zach Villarreal said facilitator teams used student surveys to identify activities that raise engagement and then redesigned curriculum units based on patterns they observed.
Board members praised the work as aligning with the district's stated goal to "deepen student engagement through innovative and personalized learning." Multiple board members said hearing directly from teachers made the work feel tangible.
District staff said the facilitator network remains active and that the district will continue to support facilitator-led professional learning on regular professional learning days and through PLCs.
The presentation included examples of classroom changes, translated materials for dual-language participation, and cross-grade collaboration; no board action was taken. The district will report back on program outcomes in future meetings.
