Our Staff Teams 2007-2008

• Administrative Team
• Threes Team
• Fours Team
• Kindergarten Team
• Extended Day Team

Resources for Staff

The Carnegie Mellon Human Resources Department provides helpful information for current employees regarding benefits, professional development opportunities (called learning and development), equal opportunity services.

Lifeworks, an expanded Employee Assistance Program, is available to employees and their dependents at no cost. Use of any Lifeworks service, from web surfing to material requests to counseling, is always 100% confidential.

Children's School Staff Documents are available by clicking on the links below.

• 2007-2008 Staff Handbook
• Director Job Description
  
• Undergraduate/Volunteer
• Assistant Teacher
• Teacher
• Administrative Coordinator
• Assistant Director

Staff Professional Development

Professional Development is a high priority at the Children's School because it supports our continuous quality improvement. We dedicate 1.5 weeks at the beginning of the school year, every Friday afternoon plus two full days during the year, and 1.5 weeks at the end of the year as paid professional development time. This time is separate from the 4 full days we schedule for teacher-parent conferences each year. In addition, staff members often engage in professional development on their own time (i.e., evening, weekend, or summer experiences), and we make every effort to provide classroom coverage for staff members who wish to participate in professional development opportunities that are scheduled when school is in session. Parents are informed of our professional development activities via our monthly school newsletter.

Dr. Carver coordinates our "in-house" professional development with input from the whole staff. Our time is divided roughly equally between advancement seminars, staff and team planning and reflection meetings, and independent activities. Seminars may be facilitated by Dr. Carver or another staff member, other CMU professionals, or outside speakers, depending on the topics chosen. In all cases, we consistently focus on applying what we learn to enhance our program. Staff and team meeting time is essential for both maintaining and advancing our work because of the team-building, dialogue, and reflection emphasis. Finally, independent time is necessary to support the educators' curriculum development, conference planning, and outreach efforts.

The Children's School provides PAEYC / NAEYC memberships for each staff member, which means that everyone receives the PAEYC bi-monthly newsletter and the NAEYC bi-monthly journal, "Young Children". We offer to pay for every staff member to attend the local PAEYC conference and send several representatives to the national NAEYC conference. In many cases, attendees also present workshops at these conferences. Dr. Carver typically attends and presents at the NALS and NCCCC conferences, occasionally inviting a staff member to collaborate on a joint presentation. Through our school's Early Childhood Professional Development Center, we offer tours, consulting, and workshops for area educators. Our most popular event is a two-day workshop in late August, which many teachers use as a back-to-school-boost for their early childhood programs.

Beginning in 2004, the four partners in the Alcoa Collaborative for Early Childhood Professional Development (Children's School, CMU Cyert Center for Early Education, Shady Lane, and the University of Pittsburgh Child Development Center) have collaborated on a joint professional development project for the 125 staff people across all four centers. Staff members have had opportunities to hear national speakers, dialogue with colleagues during center visits, participate in book club and roundtable discussions, shadow colleagues in another center, and visit high quality early childhood sites outside of Pittsburgh. All of these activities are planned by a team of educators representing all four centers and funded by a joint grant from the Alcoa Foundation. In all of these ways, Children's School educators are better equipped to provide the best possible learning context for each of our students by being lifelong learners ourselves. We appreciate parent support of this valuable time for professional development.