You are enthusiastically invited . . .

to participate in the 2009 Professional Development Schools National Conference held in sunny Daytona Beach, Florida.

What It Means To Be a Professional Development School: Moving Forward with What We Believe

In its fifth year as the only nationwide association focused exclusively on the work of Professional Development Schools, the National Association for Professional Development Schools (NAPDS) joins with the University of South Carolina’s College of Education in inviting educators from across the P-16 educational continuum to share the results of their work in Professional Development Schools. The 2009 PDS National Conference moves to Daytona Beach, Florida, for what the Conference Planning Team envisions as a continuation of the invaluable dialogue about the significant role of PDSs in today’s educational environment. That dialogue took a major leap forward with the April 2008 release of the NAPDS’s What It Means to Be a Professional Development School identifying nine essentials of PDS work. The Association statement was subsequently examined in great detail by over one hundred educators who participated in the National Leadership Forum on the Nine Essentials of PDS Work in New Orleans in early August 2008. The 2009 PDS National Conference serves as yet another opportunity to move forward in our understanding of what we believe are the critical components of successful PDS work.

Having listened carefully to PDS educators who attended the last nine national conferences, the Conference Planning Team is currently crafting a program that will include even more opportunities for educators to formally and informally exchange ideas about their work. The tentative program includes a focused attention on the nine essentials; meeting opportunities for PDS directors, college and university deans, teacher candidates, and P-12 faculty, staff, and administrators; question and answer sessions with the editors of School-University Partnerships (the nationally refereed NAPDS journal); and pre-conference workshops on a range of PDS-related topics. As always, we will make sure that there are ample opportunities for conference participants to enjoy sunny Florida, something made all the more possible by the ocean-front location of the conference hotel.

While the details for the above-mentioned program items are being put together in the coming months, we recognize that the most appreciated aspect of previous conferences has been the opportunity for PDS educators to hear from each other about initiatives on the local and state levels. With that knowledge in mind, we encourage you to submit proposals for one of two types of sessions described in this announcement: (1) Concurrent Sessions examining any one of the four conference questions and (2) Poster Sessions offered by PDS teacher candidates. Specifics for both types of sessions are detailed in the proposal guidelines. As the national PDS initiative has steadily grown in recent years, we anticipate accepting approximately 300 proposals for Concurrent Sessions and as many as 50 Poster Sessions. We therefore encourage you to submit your proposals as soon as possible.

The deadline for submitting proposals is
October 15, 2008 (postmarked)

The Professional Development Schools National Conference is sponored by: