Professional Development

Managing Anti-Social Behavior

This module helps educators figure out how to motivate students with challenges, how to develop their strengths and use both their interests and strengths as a pathway to learning excellence.

Beginning Reading Comprehension

Focuses on how children learn to read and the best ways to teach reading from kindergarten to the end of the primary grades. Because the course contains considerable information on how students develop basic decoding skills, it is also useful for teachers and support staff working with older students who are having difficulty with decoding and fluency. The course presents a synthesis of the research consensus for beginning reading instruction, and it provides the most effective instructional strategies—aligned to that research— to help students develop print awareness, phonemic awareness, knowledge of the alphabetical system, phonics/decoding skills, fluency, vocabulary and comprehension.

Managing Behavior in School Communities

This course presents the most recent and seminal research on challenging student behavior. MBSC provides educators and other school personnel with effective strategies for managing unwanted behavior across a variety of learning environments. MBSC will provide teachers and support staff with the information, tools and skills they may need to prevent or eliminate challenging or antisocial behaviors and/or to manage much of this behavior when it occurs. The course reviews what is found in AFT’s Foundations course, Beginning of the Year Classroom Management, and takes the research to the next level for students who do not respond to basic prevention through effective classroom management.

Reading Comprehension Instruction

This course meets the 40-hour certification requirement for elementary teachers to renew their certificate after 2025.  It gives instruction in strategies to improve vocabulary and comprehension of students.

First Aid, CPR and AED

This course provides certification for Basic First Aid, CPR, and the use of an AED machine.

Strategies for Student Success

This high-quality, research-based professional learning program consists of three-hour long modules that crate a manageable way to connect with educators. The SSS modules address teaching and learning in a way that benefits new and veteran educators alike. Content is taught with activities that require reflection on daily practice, debate over research and current practices, utilizing modeling and experiential learning approaches. Engaged discussions augment the relevance of the research-based classroom strategies, and instruction is designed to facilitate immediate use.

Managing Student Behavior for School Support Staff

This course is designed for paraprofessionals and school support staff who have contact with and/or are responsible for overseeing the behavior and safety of students in the classroom, cafeteria, school bus, office, playground or school hallway setting. The course will teach paraprofessionals and school support staff how to manage challenging behavior and disruptive students.

The courses listed below meet the 20-hour requirement for students with disabilities requirement for all teachers to recertify

SWD – Building Relationships and Developing Strategies for Teaching ESE Students
SWD – The ESE Behavioral Cycle and Related Classroom Strategies
SWD – Characteristics of an ESE student
SWD – Developing skills for Social Competence and relationships for ESE students