PDS Welcome

August 14, 2023

Dear KUPDS Alliance,

Welcome back to another academic year and our Professional Development Schools (PDS) partnership with the School of Education & Human Sciences at the University of Kansas. We value our active relationship with you and your staff!  The school and staff provide a rich clinical site for the teacher candidates at the University of Kansas.

The PDS program is specifically designed to provide teacher candidates with multiple opportunities in schools that experience academic, language, and socio-economic challenges.  We believe that, in our PDS schools, teacher candidates really “learn to teach”. The newly revised university accreditation standards emphasize the need for active university/school district relationships in which both the schools and our students mutually benefit.

CAEP Standard 2

The provider ensures effective partnerships and high-quality clinical practice are central to candidate preparation. These experiences should be designed to develop candidate’s knowledge, skills, and professional dispositions to demonstrate positive impact on diverse students’ learning and development. High quality clinical practice offers candidates experiences in different settings and modalities, as well as with diverse P-12 students, schools, families, and communities. Partners share responsibility to identify and address real problems of practice candidates experience in their engagement with P-12 students.

For our strong partnership to continue to improve and grow, we need your input, guidance, collaboration, and evaluation of our shared program. It is critical that we have active, shared, and ongoing communication and conversations.  We are asking that our quarterly meetings remain a priority for you and/or administrative designee and your teacher liaison. We will be sure to try and schedule these meetings at mutually convenient times to maximize attendance. I am including a PDS calendar in this communication for your review.

Thanks for all you do!

Warm regards,