Throughout the school year, staff members in the Wright City R-II School District can learn through district-provided professional development.

At the district’s August school board meeting, Assistant Superintendent of Curriculum, Assessment and Instruction Dr. Holly Broadway-Yates briefed the board on the program's current status through a program evaluation.

“The evaluation is for FY26, and we’re going to compare it to FY25,” Broadway-Yates said. “We did push to receive feedback from our staff on how they felt things were going and how it (professional development) was benefiting them.”

Broadway-Yates told the board that staff can provide feedback on each scheduled Staff Development Day, as well as overall feedback through the Professional Development Community (PDC) survey.

She said that the survey showed strengths in several areas.

“While RtI (Response to Intervention) needs to continue to be a focus for PD, it has still shown some improvement in our survey, which was nice to see,” Broadway-Yates said. “Overall, we continue to improve in the area of assessments, and the survey results show where to hone in on the need for more support. While survey results show the need for continued training in classroom management, there are certain areas of management that have shown improvement and staff participation in feedback opportunities continues to increase. This last year, we were able to add some personalized PD opportunities for non-core teachers. This will be expanding into FY27.”

Broadway-Yates outlined three goals for FY26 and where the district stood with those.

She said that Goal 1 was “Wright City R-II will allocate one percent of its state foundation formula to professional development aimed at achieving school improvement plans and aligned with CSIP. Seventy-five percent of the funds shall be spent in the same fiscal year.”

She said that this goal was met.

Goal 2 was: “By the end of the academic year, 80 percent of Wright City teachers will demonstrate effective use of collaborative data analysis techniques within their Impact Teams, resulting in a five percent increase in student proficiency on state assessments.”

The results for this goal remain inconclusive.

Goal 3, meanwhile, was: “At the end of the 25-26 school year, Wright City will see a 10-percent increase in positive feedback from teachers in the area of RtI skills and strategies.”

Because the increase was only three percent, the goal was not met.

“We didn’t meet our goal, but we’re still working on it,” Broadway-Yates said. “Our teachers have said they still need support there.”

“Is that an achievable goal, you think?” Board President Austin Jones asked.

“I really do,” Broadway-Yates said.

Broadway-Yates next outlined goals for the new year:

Goal 1 - Wright City R-II will allocate one percent of its state foundation formula to professional development aimed at achieving school improvement plans and aligned with CSIP. Seventy-five percent of the funds shall be spent in the same fiscal year.

Goal 2 - With the focus on the opportunities listed above in the evaluation, by the end of the FY27 academic year, Wright City teachers will demonstrate effective use of collaborative data analysis techniques for instructional decision-making within their PLC Teams, resulting in a five-percent increase in student proficiency on state assessments.

Goal 3 - At the end of the FY27 school year, Wright City will see a 10-percent increase in positive feedback from teachers in the area of RtI skills and strategies.

Broadway-Yates also presented an updated PD handbook, which the board approved.