Throughout the year, we have many Professional Learning Days, also referred to as Teacher Work Days.  These are days in which students stay home and teachers go to work and have meetings and planning periods.

Lisa Zinnecker, an English teacher at Horizon High School, when asked how she feels about Professional Learning Days, says, “I often feel disappointed because I think that they’re valuable in theory.  It’s nice to have the time to improve as a teacher, but they tend to evolve one-size-fits-all approaches; and so it’s hard for teachers of different subjects, different grade levels, and different experience levels to get something out of it.”

Additionally, Zinnecker goes into detail about what these days entail, she talks about having training in the morning, attending meetings throughout the day, and then having independent work time to prepare for classes.

When asked how she benefits from these days, Zinnecker shares, “I benefit from having time to plan more interesting lessons and to differentiate my material so it’s more accessible for different students.  If the training is good, I benefit by being pushed to think about teaching in different ways and to grow as a teacher.  If the training is not so good, I don’t benefit because it feels like a waste of time.  And meetings, it depends, because it’s really helpful to talk with other teachers.  But if we don’t meet often enough, then we can’t really follow up on things and it just doesn’t feel meaningful.”

Horizon High School sophomore McKayla Adams states that she likes these days because she gets to sleep in and she treats them as extra days to complete homework.

When asked her opinion on these days, Horizon High School sophomore Isabelle Chavez says, “I feel like they’re very necessary for students’ mental health, like, it’s a good day to take a break.  I don’t know if it’s beneficial for teachers, though.  I understand it’s a work day, but sometimes it seems like they don’t get too much work done.  It’s also a good day for them to get caught up.  Some teachers do get things in the gradebook, but sometimes teachers don’t.  And I feel like they have these days for meetings, so they might not get a lot of work done.”

In the end, it seems like teachers utilize these days as best they can.  Whether they get tons of grading and planning done, or if meetings take up most of their day.  On these days, teachers are taught new ways to teach students, have various meetings, and have independent time to grade and plan upcoming lessons.