The Hiatt K-17 Professional Development School Partnership
Partnership Structure
Several institutionalized roles help facilitate the work of the partnership. Each partner school has a teacher-leader with full-time responsibility for collaborating with university education and arts and sciences faculty on teacher preparation and related professional development programs. Clinical faculty roles at the University are oriented similarly. A steering committee of principals, teacher-leaders, University faculty, and district staff govern the partnership; there are individual partnership committees for the two grades 7-12 schools as well.
Increasingly, the challenges faced by the partnership benefit from community expertise. As facilitator of the Worcester Education Partnership, a University-school-community partnership supporting systemic high school reform in Worcester, the Hiatt Center has helped to organize ethnic minority groups and link their perspective to efforts to increase family involvement and promote school reform.