School Board to Discuss Adding Teacher Workdays

Among several items on Monday's Charleston County School Board agenda is a proposal to add four professional development days to the 2013-14 school calendar for district staff.

The additional workdays will cost the District $4.7 million but will help ensure that all teachers are trained on a new standard requirement program that the State Board of Education has mandated must be implemented by the 2014-15 school year, Live5News reports.

The Board will also receive reports on educator effectiveness, the district's Head Start program and the Renaissance Schools Program — which seeks to establish a $243,000 trust fund to aid in the professional development of teachers and staff at four schools that have been selected to take part in the program.

Those schools are Burns Elementary School, Memminger Elementary School, North Charleston Elementary School and Sanders-Clyde Elementary School. The program would provide up to $1,000 per teacher to enroll in graduate or online courses, to attend seminars and conferences, to purchase professional memberships or to purchase professional reading materials. Up to $500 will be available to non-teaching classified employees at those schools for similar uses.