This letter is in response to the Sun Journal’s editorial on July 1 regarding the Auburn School Department’s request for student late arrival on half-day Wednesdays for grades 7-12, in order to have staff engage in professional development.

Job-embedded professional development for teachers is a powerful way to increase the impact of a student’s education. On the surface, it seems easy to simply calculate the time we are asking for professional development and declare a loss of instructional time for students, but that is too simplistic. It doesn’t take into account the quality of that time.

We believe the professional development time will increase teacher effectiveness, student engagement, and raise student achievement for all students. It is not the amount of seat time that will raise student achievement — it is the quality of the instruction that will.

Teachers were trained to instruct students in an Industrial Age model that has been a part of the American fabric of education since the 1800s, but is now long outdated.

We believe that, with additional time for teacher professional development, we will be supporting our teachers in their hard work to successfully change our model of education from one that serves some students to a system that is world class in serving all students.

The Auburn School Department has joined districts across Maine, the nation and the world in creating a proven system of Mass Customized Learning where learning is the constant and time is the variable. At the secondary level, this is a major shift from a credit-based system, based mostly on seat time, to a system where students must be proficient in all standards before attaining a high school diploma. That requires instruction to be determined by where students are in their learning sequence rather than by a pre-established syllabus.

A world-class education requires professional development for school staff to collaborate within content areas, across grade spans and outside the walls of the school building.

It requires teachers to give each other critical feedback through coaching and examination of student work.

It requires the creation of lessons that push students to demonstrate 21st-century skills in order to be prepared for opportunities not yet imagined.

It requires the whole School Department, prekindergarten through grade 12, to engage in a cycle of continuous improvement, never to be satisfied with the status quo.

We recognize that we are asking families to trust that their sacrifice of an adjusted morning routine will yield a meaningful and necessary change in education for all Auburn students. It will be our responsibility to make sure the community is aware of the professional development plan and the identified outcomes. We see this as using a small amount of time wisely to make large gains.

More seat time in an outdated approach won’t help our children. The changes that will come about because of our time spent in professional development is exactly the right thing to do.

Katy Grondin, Auburn, Superintendent of Schools