Dive Brief:

• Superintendent Edward Gonzalez of the San Joaquin Valley, CA, Madera Unified School District offers educators and select district staff $500 annually to use on professional development of their choosing.
• The initiative is meant to empower educators to get up to speed with Common Core standards and improve their tech skills by allowing them to choose between options that include attending a conference or workshop, or designing a local workshop.
• Teachers, bus drivers, and even landscapers for the district have taken part in the program, which began last year, with a high level of participation and satisfaction reported so far. 

Dive Insight:

"Different teachers have different needs, so that's why we left it up to them," Gonzalez tells District Administration. 

Not only can the district's educators and staff attend conferences or workshops of their choosing with the money, they can also decide to put on their own workshop, bringing speakers to campus or coming up with other novel, collaborative approaches to professional development.

Gonzalez told District Administration that funding has been used on an all-day, teacher-led event on a Saturday in March focused on Common Core implementation and the latest tech, and a four-day "SummerTech 2015" event that taught teachers how to use programs like iMovie, iPhoto, Photoshop, and Excel. He says that 80% of the PD funding was used during the first year of the program, and noted that the local school board completely supported the initiative.