Oxford School District Switches to Vector’s Professional Growth Suite to Manage Employee PD

The Customer

Oxford School District, Mississippi

The Challenge

Tracking and analyzing employees’ professional development. Oxford School District is a fast-growing district of more than 4,800 students and 650 staff members. Employees frequently engage in external professional development, but the district’s previous professional development management tool was difficult for employees to navigate, and didn’t provide a good way for administrators to track employee PD. The district aimed to create a user-friendly and unified system to monitor the courses and events employees were attending. The goal was to analyze this data to gain insights into why employees selected specific professional development opportunities. This information would then be used to tailor district offerings more effectively to meet the specific needs of educators.

Obtaining meaningful feedback from employees about their professional development. Historically the district’s main method of gathering feedback from employees about their professional development was through end-of-year employee surveys. This method was inefficient and didn’t generate the type of meaningful feedback the district needed. District leaders wanted a more effective way to get employee feedback so it could more proactively respond to employees’ professional development needs throughout the year.

Simplifying mandatory compliance training. The district is required by the state and federal government to provide mandatory employee training on certain topics. Historically the district would make courses available to employees on its internal website, but the process was disjointed, with employees having to visit one website to take a course, then go to another site to upload their certificate, and go somewhere else to take a survey about the course. The district was seeking a streamlined approach to handling mandatory compliance training that was easier for employees and administrators.

The Choice

The district switched to Vector’s professional development suite to:

• Track and analyze employee professional development – both outside PD and in-house offerings – in a single, easy-to-navigate system.
• Obtain more timely and meaningful feedback from employees about PD courses, allowing the district to pivot when needed to address employees’ needs.
• Be more strategic and effective in delivering and tracking mandatory compliance training.

The Change

By adopting Vector Solutions’ professional growth suite, the district has moved from a disjointed program of professional development to a streamlined system that can be accessed in a single, easy-to-navigate platform. The district can now:

• Track and analyze employee professional development. Vector allows the district to easily identify which employees have taken which professional development courses and track compliance with state-mandated training all in one platform. “It’s a home run, we can see exactly what people are doing for professional development,” said Noah Hamilton, the district’s director of accountability and accreditation.
• Be more responsive to employees’ professional development needs. Vector’s professional development tracking system gives employees opportunities to provide immediate feedback about the PD events and courses they participate in. This helps administrators make real-time adjustments to be more responsive to employees’ professional development needs.
• Create custom professional development content and offer more professional development in-house. Vector’s professional development suite allows the district to add its own district-specific professional development courses and track them through the Vector system. Oxford School District administrators have been able to start creating their own custom professional development courses which reduces the need for teachers to go outside of the district to find courses they need to obtain their continuing education credits. If staff members do end up taking outside courses, district administrators can see what they are taking and create in-house options to meet that need in the future.
• Offer expanded online professional development options. Vector’s professional development suite allows the district to better support mandatory compliance training and allows the district to provide additional, more engaging content on a variety of relevant PD topics all in one, streamlined system. For example, federal guidelines require specific PD for ELL instructors. The district was able to leverage courses from Vector’s Inclusive Instruction & Intervention course library along with its own district-developed content to create a series of PD courses for those teachers. Hamilton especially appreciates the ability to sync all of the online training courses – both Vectors courses and the district-developed courses into Vector’s PD Tracking system, giving employees a one-stop shop to access all of their required PD. Employees like that Vector’s content is constantly updated so they aren’t taking the same courses year after year. The updated content makes compliance training more engaging.

Hamilton noted an added benefit is the ease of use and customer service. District employees say the system is easy to navigate and like that they don’t have to go to different places to complete required professional development. Hamilton said he always gets prompt support from the customer service team.

About Vector Solutions

Vector Solutions’ Professional Growth Suite brings together best-in-class professional development content and tools to manage evaluations and PD, streamlining and automating the professional growth process for K-12 school district administrators, educators, and staff.

The Vector Solutions’ Professional Growth Suite includes three award-winning solutions:

Evaluations + to help administrators manage the evaluation and development process from start to finish for educators and staff.

PD Tracking, a customizable solution that helps administrators easily plan, manage, track, and evaluate all professional development events and activities for educators and staff – improving organization, streamlining communications, and saving valuable time.

Vector Training, a library of hundreds of high-quality online video courses on important safety, prevention, and inclusive instruction topics to help school districts address individual professional development needs and support ongoing professional growth.

For more information visit:

https://www.vectorsolutions.com/industries/education/k12/professional-growth/