|
|
|
5/23/2007
|
|
West Hartford Public Schools Named PowerDistrict Spring 2007
|
West Hartford Public School’s Assistant Superintendent for Curriculum & Instruction, Karen List, made the decision early last year to adopt ProTraxx’s professional development management tool, EzTraxx Online, to simplify and enhance the District’s comprehensive program of continued learning for its staff.
Access to the system with a secure user name and password allows each staff member to view their imported historical CEU participation data along with other credentials maintained operationally by the District. In addition to providing the verification of the information, staff now has hands-on immediate access to offerings which may be searched, evaluated and used to track toward recertification requirements defined by the State Department of Education. They are also building the foundation for data mining which will include staff participation information to further drive decision making at all levels throughout the district. Their customized site is becoming a resource for news, information, and opportunities of interest.
Tiered management of their goal-oriented diverse program prompted the development of several new pieces of functionality within the EzTraxx solution including much of the modifications to the EzProfile module related to staff evaluations. Beginning with the assignment of an individual to an evaluator, ProTraxx worked closely with the West Hartford team, led by Curriculum Specialist, Catherine Buchholz, to assist the staff in eliminating additional paper-based steps to the activity enrollment and approval process. This ignited ProTraxx’s plans to further expand the functionality of the Evaluation section which now includes the easy setup of observations, the direct link to each staff member’s Individual Professional Development Plan and the transfer of staff from cycle to cycle as they proceed toward and beyond tenure. Future development includes the email scheduling of the observations. The District also played a key role in the analysis of our design and the enhancement of the flexibility of one of ProTraxx’s largest new features, Tiered Approval. The feature suits West Hartford’s workflow process that routes activity requests from individual staff member to building principals and on to Central Office for final consideration, including historical commenting as it passes through the chain of command.
Although the transition is not without challenges, the administrative team’s commitment to the project set the stage for a successful deployment to the entire staff of almost 1000 teachers, administrators and classified personnel. Mary Ann Ayers and Cheryl Leva served as liaisons between ProTraxx and West Hartford to facilitate all aspects of the project, drawing on their understanding of CEU processes and technical experience and providing the extra support needed to make the leap from paper to web-based operations. Their tenacious spirit and knowledge of operations helped pave the way to district-wide adoption, maximizing the district’s investment.
|
| |