Mississippi teachers prepare for required professional development

From Mississippi education officials' perspective, the state had good reason to adopt the Common Core State Standards (CCSS). According to the Mississippi Department of Education's website, the academic benchmarks the CCSS provide will help students throughout Mississippi succeed.

However, before students can get to that point, their educators need to have a handle on the CCSS. This is why teachers in the Tupelo Public School District must participate in personalized training at the end of the current academic year, the Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal reported. The professional development sessions will take place from May 28 through 31, with instructors required to receive 12 hours of training in total.

In addition to the CCSS, the Tupelo educators will cover topics such as new strategies for teaching mathematics, integrating art into the classroom, creating podcasts and using Mississippi's new teacher evaluation model.

"We want to start everyone's summer with some enthusiasm and something new in their hands so they can spend the summer thinking about how they will use it next year," Leigh Mobley, the District's executive director of curriculum and instruction, told the news source.