Last year, PeachStar received numerous requests from Georgia educators to include more professional development programming in the broadcast schedule. In response to your requests, PeachStar is pleased to offer professional development programming for K-12 educators each day from 4-5 PM. The offerings are informative and cover a wide variety of topics that impact teaching and learning.
We encourage schools to offer PeachStar programming for staff development unit (SDU) credit. Keep in mind that the same basic rules and regulations that apply to traditional modes of professional development also apply to video and web-based training.
Local school systems are ultimately responsible for deciding whether training activities are appropriate for earning SDU credit. In addition to whatever guidelines are set at the school and district level, basic state requirements must be met. The Georgia Department of Education requires that
* 10 clock hours of instruction must be attended to receive one staff development unit;
* Attendance must be documented for each workshop offering; and
* Mastery verification or on-the-job performance verification must be documented for each workshop offering.
Schools and systems that are considering the use of PeachStar programming for staff development purposes should understand that, while PeachStar serves as the instructional delivery system for the programming, it is the responsibility of each school or school district to provide the following:
* An on-site facilitator to verify participant attendance at each session (required by state guidelines);
* On-site personnel to document that participants have completed workshop activities successfully or that new learnings have been incorporated successfully into the job as verified by an on-the-job performance assessment (required by state guidelines); and
* An on-site facilitator to ensure that school or school district requirements for earning staff development units are met.
If you are interested in making PeachStar programming a part of your staff development plan, contact your school or system staff development coordinator. There is an existing form called the Staff Development Unit Course Completion form, approved by the Georgia Department of Education, that your system might want to use to document successful completion of SDU course work.
