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Staff Development 
Professional learning is vital to the success of Sweetwater ISD. Leaders, teachers, and instructional support roles across Sweetwater ISD must have ongoing, job embedded learning to support the fidelity of implementation of the instructional framework through building learning agility. Learning agility is the ability to be successful in the future when you do not know what the future will be like. Staff development activities are organized to meet the needs of employees and the district. Staff development for instructional personnel is predominantly campus-based, related to achieving campus performance objectives, addressed in the campus improvement plan, and approved by a campus-level advisory committee. Staff development for noninstructional personnel is designed to meet specific licensing requirements (e.g., bus drivers) and continued employee skill development. Individuals holding renewable SBEC certificates are responsible for obtaining the required training hours and maintaining appropriate documentation. All staff development activities can be located on the SISD Professional Development Calendar.
  • The gradual release model is a framework for instructional delivery where the responsibilities and expectations of learning shifts from the teacher toward the student as the lesson or instructional unit progresses and the student shows increased mastery and depth of knowledge of the content being taught.
  • Teachers, Paraprofessionals and Administrators all receive Google training to support the use of Google Workspace for Education (GWfE) which includes Google Classroom, Gmail, Calendars and other processing and productivity tools.  Google trainings are offered in person and online by district personnel or through Region 14 ESC.  District created trainings will be customized to the needs of our staff and students.  Staff members are encouraged to obtain higher levels of training through the acquisition of Google Level 1 and Level 2 certificates.

  • New teachers will be provided with additional days of inservice at the start of the school year to address district level introductions, policies, procedures, and expectations.  Campus specific information will be addressed during campus inservice days.

     

    Inservice Schedule 2021

    New Hire and Technology Tips


  • Administrators, teachers and paraprofessionals at Sweetwater Middle School and Sweetwater High School will receive training in CKH 1 on August 9 and 10. East Ridge Elementary and Sweetwater Intermediate Administrators and teachers will also participate in CKH 1 training on August 9 and 10. ERE and SIS paraprofessionals will receive their CKH 1 training in September. Ongoing administrator coaching will be provided throughout the school year by CKH consultants to ensure successful implementation.

  • New teachers or teachers new to Sweetwater ISD (with less than 2 years of teaching experience) will be supported throughout their first year by the New Teacher Academy (NTA).  The NTA is designed to ensure new teachers are taught and continually supported throughout the year to provide the most effective instruction possible.  The collaborative environment of the NTA creates both a sounding board and support system providing our new teachers with the tools they need to be successful and a lifelong educator in Sweetwater ISD.

    New Teacher Orientation

    New Teacher Academy Annual Handout

  • Teachers must re-register each year before logging on, as all TeacherPortal non-administrative user accounts are deleted at the end of each school year. Administrative user accounts are retained. To register, you must provide your staff ID and name. You must be associated with the district for the current school year. Upon registering, you will create your user name, password, and PIN. A staff ID can be associated with multiple user accounts, which allows you to have both a teacher account and one or more administrator accounts. The user name must be different for each account.

    Upon initial account creation or log on to the portal, the End User License Agreement (EULA) for ASCENDER is displayed. Users must accept the agreement in order to proceed. This agreement must be accepted on an annual basis. 

    If you forgot your password or PIN, click Forgot Password on the Login page to go to the Reset Password page where you can reset your password using an automated process. If you forgot your user name, click Forgot User Name. Navigation tools are located along the left side of the page, or in the top-right corner. Some tools function differently on mobile devices. 

    Anytime you are experiencing issues with the Ascender TeacherPortal please manually clear your cache. You may have to do this daily. A shortcut to do this is Control+Shift+Delete. For chrome, make sure the time range is All Time and the checkboxes for Cookies and other site data and Cached images and files are checked. For firefox, ensure the time range is Everything and the Active Logins, Form & Search History, Cookies, Cache, and Offline Website Data checkboxes are checked.

    Navigation tools: Navigation tools are located along the left side of the pate, or in the menu access icontop-right hand corner. Some tools function differently on mobile devices. On a mobile device, tap to access the side menu. The district and campus you are logged onto are listed at the top of the navigation bar. If you currently teach courses at more than one campus, select which campus to view. 

    Teacher - Your name is displayed as it is entered at the district's Human Resources department

    Attendance - You can post and view attendance.
    Grades - You can enter assignment grades, as well as cycle and semester grades.
    Reports - You can access a variety of teacher reports.
    Discipline - You can enter discipline referrals and view the status of existing referrals.
    Settings - You can manage your user profile, class settings, and more.
    Admin - If you are logged on with a district- or campus-level administrator account, you can access additional administrator pages.

    Menu- Click to hide the left-side navigation bar. Click again to display the navigation bar.
    Collapse Section- Various sections throughout TeacherPortal can be collapsed or expanded. Most data is expanded by default. Click Collapse Sectionto hide the section from view. Click Expand Sectionto show the section.
    Print button - Various pages throughout TeacherPortal can be printed. Use the print button instead of the browser's print option to ensure the best formatting of the content. 

    Link to Ascender TeacherPortal: https://portal.ascender14.net/TeacherPortal/login?distid=177902

    Teacher Portal Quick Guide Link


  • More Info Coming Soon!
  • More Info Coming Soon!

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