The School Community Professional Development Act, created by section 1012.98, Florida Statutes (F.S.), compels Florida’s professional learning community to collaboratively develop standards that support the framework for standards adopted by the international professional learning association Learning Forward.
Florida’s Professional Learning Standards define the core expectations for high-quality professional learning systems and opportunities, and form the foundation for district professional learning systems and catalogs.
More information regarding the standards can be found in the resources below.
The current professional learning standards, adopted in 2018, consist of three elements: domains, standards, and indicators. At the highest level, the domains identify broad categories of knowledge and skills. Within each domain, the standards outline a particular professional competency or expectation, while the indicators serve as specific examples of practices or behaviors that may indicate proficiency in the standard.
There are seven standards grouped into five domains representative of stages in an improvement cycle: Foundation, Needs Assessment and Planning, Learning, Implementing and Evaluating.
The previous professional development standards, adopted in 2010, described the characteristics and components of a quality professional development system that met the requirements of Florida’s laws.
There were 65 standards that reflected the three levels of a district professional learning system (i.e., educator, school, and district), grouped into four strands: Planning, Learning, Implementing and Evaluating.
