Purpose: The following narratives describe how successful relationships between mentors and pre-service and inservice teachers go beyond observations and feedback. The purpose is to share the multifaceted approach mentors take to support teacher candidates in generative ways so they can develop their potential as practitioners and how they nurture…

In this article, the authors describe a key change from the First Edition to the Second Edition of Essential 3 of the NAPDS Nine Essentials. In the original Essential 3, the concept of "reciprocal professional development" was emphasized to honor PL opportunities that are led by either school-based faculty personnel as well as…

Purpose: The purpose of this viewpoint article is to share the reflections of school and university leaders on the success of their emerging school-university partnership for the preparation of middle school teachers. Design/methodology/approach: The article is a reflective paper in which the leaders of the school-university partnership discuss…

Due to the increasing teacher attrition rate, it is crucial that policy initiatives are put into place to retain high quality teachers. The National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS) cohort is one policy initiative that can attempt to effectively increase teacher retention through a multi-tier university-school partnership. The…

The purpose of the current manuscript is to delineate a collaborative professional development effort between Norfolk Public Schools and Old Dominion University--a nascent school-university partnership. Ed Talks were created to build relationships between public school and university faculty, but we have encountered challenges in implementing this…

Purpose: The National Association for Professional Development Schools (NAPDS) recognizes that there is a tendency for the term "PDS" (Professional Development School) to be used as a catch-all for various relationships that constitute school--university partnership work. The intent of this NAPDS statement is to assert the essentials, or…

In this article the authors describe a professional learning initiative focused on joyful teaching and learning during the COVID-19 pandemic and the techniques that were used to foster a culture of belonging. The authors utilize an integrative framework for understanding, cultivating, and assessing belongingness to suggest implications for…

As a two-time winner of the Exemplary Professional Development School (PDS) Achievement Award and the only historically Black college and university (HBCU) to be presented with this award, Bowie State University offers a unique perspective on the power of partnership. This year's honor is particularly special, given the obstacles many educators…

This article presents a case in point of an inquiry community in a professional development school (PDS). The community (supported by an "Inquiry in the PDS" graduate seminar) spanned institutional boundaries and involved a range of PDS partners who collaboratively studied their own practices. The article describes the community and…

As more PDS [Professional Development School] and ITP [Initial Teacher Preparation] programs move toward year-long teacher residency/co-teaching models, it becomes even more critical that we--university faculty, P-12 administrators and PDS leadership--strategically match teacher candidates and experienced teachers. How might we go about doing this…

This article represents the 28 year history of Professional Development Schools at the University of South Carolina and explains how the network continues to grow and thrive, in part, by the application of a collaborative leadership model. Our goal in this article is to recognize and understand how our continued efforts, as professional…

School leaders typically encounter district policies and procedures that make it difficult to facilitate school improvement efforts effectively (Bottoms & Fry, 2009; Bottoms & Schmidt-Davis, 2010). When the San Antonio Independent School District earned a state level distinction as a District of Innovation, the PDS principal and university…

Since their conception in the mid-1980s, Professional Development Schools (PDSs) have been seen as vehicles for the simultaneous renewal. Each year, the National Association for Professional Development School (NAPDS) selects PDSs that are exemplars of the NAPDS Nine Essentials. The purpose of this article is to share the comprehensive design of…

The Common Core State Standards (CCSS); the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS); and the College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) Framework for Social State Standards are bringing many changes to schools and classrooms across the United States. This article suggests using the power of questions to make connections across seemingly disparate…

The Bowie State University PDS Network Partnership is one of the 2015 Exemplary PDS Partnerships recognized by the National Association for Professional Development Schools. This partnership is built on a series of signature programs that define and support our partnership work. This article describes each of those signature programs that make our…