Center supports teachers close to home

A new University center in Georgetown, Del., will provide public school districts and charter schools in Kent and Sussex counties with the services of experts in teaching specific content areas.

The Southern Delaware Professional Development Center (SDPDC), which operates in partnership with the Delaware Department of Education, is the first in a potential network of professional development centers across the state, according to Joseph Pika, professor of political science and international relations and director of the Center for Secondary Teacher Education at UD. He says the new center will make it possible to coordinate common professional goals across multiple districts and help create partnerships for specific goals.

“The programs will benefit their teachers and students in the four principal content areas—math, science, English and social studies,” Pika says. “Partnerships with specific districts will enable the staff to work with teachers on a sustained basis, in contrast to the usual ‘fly-by’ professional development that is limited to a single morning, single afternoon or daylong session. We also hope to stimulate interest among southern Delaware students in becoming secondary teachers in Delaware. Many students prefer to complete their education near their homes in Kent and Sussex.”

The team of SDPDC specialists will be based at the Carter Partnership Center on the Delaware Technical and Community College campus in Georgetown, and programs will be offered at UD’s Carvel Research and Education Center, with close collaboration with the Mathematics and Science Education Resource Center, the Delaware Center for Teacher Education and Delaware Academy of School Leadership. Programs also will be offered on the Polytech School District campus south of Dover.

David Ring, superintendent of the Delmar School District, says the new center will help eliminate the long drives that teachers in southern Delaware have had to take in order to attend professional development events, mostly in Dover.

“Now we can send somebody to attend a morning workshop and they will be back by lunchtime, instead of spending the whole day away,” he says. “I think this will make more teachers interested in the program. UD has a great reputation, and this is one way of sharing that reputation with southern Delaware.”