Winthrop Partnership Recognized with Professional Development Schools Award

Quick Facts

The award recognizes higher education and public school partnerships whose collaborative efforts shape educator leadership and practice.

Revitalized in 2009, the Winthrop University-School Partnership Network involves multiple programs across the Winthrop campus and in surrounding school districts.

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Lisa Johnson

ROCK HILL, S.C. - The Winthrop University-School Partnership Network is a 2013 recipient of the National Association of Professional Development Schools Award for Exemplary Professional Development School Achievement.

The award recognizes higher education and public school partnerships whose collaborative efforts shape educator leadership and practice. The four recipients selected met nine criteria in achieving a partnership.

Revitalized in 2009, the Winthrop University-School Partnership Network involves multiple programs across the Winthrop campus and in surrounding school districts. Faculty representatives from Winthrop’s College of Arts and Sciences, Visual and Performing Arts and the Richard W. Riley College of Education work on the partnership with nine surrounding school districts, seven Professional Development Schools, 23 Partner Schools, and multiple satellite schools.

Their efforts are supported by a $7.5 million Teacher Quality Partnership Grant called NetSCOPE, which relies heavily on shared governance between university, district and school faculty. Its mission is to support preschool through college education, provide continuing education for practicing educators, prepare future teachers through collaborative learning communities and to increase support for new teachers.

This is one of several accolades for the Winthrop University-School Partnership Network. It was recently recognized by the Renaissance Group and the Teacher Education Council of State Colleges and Universities as an exemplary model of clinical practice, as well as by the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education.

“These awards exemplify the hard work of so many people at the university and in our partner districts,” said Partnership Director Lisa Johnson. “Moving from an “I” to a “we” perspective, our work is a model of how to not just blur, but to remove the lines between university and school for the purpose of developing high quality teachers who can support learning for all students.”

Johnson, along with several Winthrop faculty and school district personnel, traveled to New Orleans on Feb. 15 to accept the award. For more information about the NetSCOPE partnership work, visit http://www2.winthrop.edu/netscope/.

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