Benicia Unified lays out five-year professional learning plan emphasizing academic standards, SEL and equity

Stephanie Rice, the district's director of educational services, briefed trustees on a five-year professional learning plan that the district posted on its website and intends to implement through 2030. Rice said the plan aligns the district's LCAP goals, core beliefs and professional learning community foundations and is organized around strategic pillars for academic instruction, social-emotional learning and equity.

"By 2030, all instructional decisions will be made through collaborative analysis of relevant data resulted in targeted instruction that meets the needs of all students," Rice said, describing a multi-year roadmap of targeted training, summer institutes and recurring districtwide professional-learning days. She outlined resources and systems the district will use, including a Padlet repository for learning tools, learning walks that bring administrators and teachers together for classroom observation, and grade-band collaborative sessions for essential standards work.

Rice described supports for new teachers (one-on-one check-ins with a district TOSA), summer training in the district's math curriculum (CPM), and expanded early-learning professional development for pre-K and transitional-K. Trustees asked about scheduling and whether teachers could access materials asynchronously; Rice said the district offers multiple formats (in-person sessions, recorded slide-and-video overviews and after-school options) to fit teacher schedules.

District leaders said the professional learning plan is intended to be iterative and sustained, with site-level implementation and district monitoring, and that several teachers from Benicia are participating in county- and statewide curriculum development work.