Teaching & Learning
The Dallas Center-Grimes Community School District Teaching and Learning Department puts in a great deal of work behind-the-scenes to continuously improve our district’s programming.
District Curriculum
The Iowa Department of Education has constructed and outlined Iowa Core expectations for all Iowa schools. The Iowa Core are the things all students in Iowa are to know and be able to do during each stage of their K-12 educational career. Please access the Department of Education’s database of the Iowa Core Standards and Benchmarks for more information.
As part of the Iowa Core, effective teaching characteristics indicate how educators can focus on student learning by developing student-centered classrooms and creating rigorous and meaningful learning opportunities. To help prepare our students for success, educators use quality instructional practices to support learner differences and provide effective and authentic assessments to guide and inform instruction.
Professional Development
The Dallas Center-Grimes Focus for Professional Development:
To increase achievement for all students through a focus on social-emotional well being and a guaranteed and viable curriculum that includes engagement, infusion of technology, and research-based practices.
At Dallas Center-Grimes, we provide professional learning experiences for our educators. The district ensures that the professional development aligns with the requirements of Iowa Professional Development Model. Professional development is an integral part of school improvement and helps ensure every classroom contains a highly qualified teacher who will positively impact student learning and performance. Improved student learning is, and always will be, a primary focus at Dallas Center-Grimes Community School District. Targeted professional learning is provided throughout the year on designated professional development days and job-embedded professional development experiences are possible as a result of our district Teacher Leadership and Compensation (TLC) Program.
TLC Grant
The Teacher Leadership and Compensation (TLC) system rewards effective teachers with leadership opportunities and higher pay, attracts promising new teachers with competitive starting salaries and more support, and fosters greater collaboration for all teachers to learn from each other.
The overriding philosophy of the system is multi-pronged, but boils down to this: Improving student learning requires improving the instruction they receive each day. There is no better way to do this than to empower our best teachers to lead the effort.
Through the system, teacher leaders take on extra responsibilities, including helping colleagues analyze data and fine tune instructional strategies as well as coaching and co-teaching.
The goals of the Teacher Leadership and Compensation System are:
- Attract able and promising new teachers by offering competitive starting salaries and offering short-term and long-term professional development and leadership opportunities.
- Retain effective teachers by providing enhanced career opportunities.
- Promote collaboration by developing and supporting opportunities for teachers in schools and school districts statewide to learn from each other.
- Reward professional growth and effective teaching by providing pathways for career opportunities that come with increased leadership responsibilities and involve increased compensation.
- Improve student achievement by strengthening instruction.
Teacher Leadership Positions in the Dallas Center-Grimes Community School District include:
Mentor Teachers (Building Level) – 25 Positions
Curriculum Facilitators (Curriculum and Student Services) – 4 Positions
Instructional Coaches (Building Level) – 8 Positions
PLC Leaders (Building Level) – 37 Positions
Committees & Groups
The Board of Directors of each public school district and the authorities in charge of the district shall do the following:
- Appoint a School Improvement Advisory Committee, made up of a variety of stakeholders to the district, to make recommendations to the School Board.
- Utilize recommendations from the School Improvement Advisory Committee to determine the following…
- Major educational goals
- Student learning goals
- Long-range and annual improvement goals (reading, math, and science)
- Desired level of student performance
- Progress in meeting goals related to items 2-4
- Harassment or bullying prevention goals, training and other initiatives
- Consider recommendations to infuse character education into the educational program
The District Leadership Team is made up of administrators and certified teachers from each of our seven buildings. The purpose of this team is to provide key feedback and support to the ongoing work of the Dallas Center-Grimes Community School District. The members of this team are involved in the leadership and direction setting of our district. Members typically serve a three year term if they are able.This is important as it provides the team with consistent leadership over time that will help to ensure we are working in the right direction in order to benefit the students of our district.
