>1. Does your school fund faculty who pursue advanced degrees?
Very modestly.
>
>2. If so, how much money do you give per year or per degree?
From the handbook: "BCDS will reimburse employees for credit-bearing
academic coursework toward a first master's degree (or equivalent) at
accredited institutions of higher learning at a rate of 75% of course cost
to a maximum of $600 per course and a fiscal year maximum of two (2)
courses per individual."
>
>3. Are there any restriction on the type of degree that can be pursued?
>(i.e. master's but not PhD? only in a subject directly related to the
>teaching discipline?)
see above
>
>4. Do you have any requirements that go along with this funding (perhaps
>requiring a commitment after the degree of three years or repay the
>money, etc)?
no
The philosophy here has been to put the bulk of PD funds into work that
supports either identified individual professional development needs or
else school goals or needs of some particular sort. Big support of
individual degree work seems like a disproportionate expenditure, but of
course then we lose a few (generally younger) folks along the way who
leave us for graduate school and don't always come back our way. On the
other hand, we try where we can to hire people with earned master's
degrees, even if they are a bit more expensive out of the box.
The other issue is the question of how much attention your F/T teacher is
giving your school if s/he is racing to finish a degree.
If a school had a bit more money I think a great plan would be to build in
a structured and equitable way to help teachers repay student loans for
earned degrees, graduate only if funds were limited and undergrad if there
were a bit more money lying around. You would be an attractive place for a
newly minted MA or even PhD to work, as the loan thing often drives good
young degree holders out of the classroom, even against their desires.
I do wonder how successful schools are at enforcing the "stay beyond" part
of arrangements that have such a requirement.
For what it's worth, I was once on the board of a school that paid
lavishly and fully for master's degrees and saw most of the
recipients--some of whom had been working almost F/T toward those degrees
during the school year, prompting my concern about attention expressed
above--leave for other schools or other sectors almost as soon as the
diploma was in their hands. This made me wish for a "stay beyond" rule or
at least a system whereby reimbursement for coursework would be delayed
for, say, a year after each course had been completed, assuming the
employee were still working for the school. For the school to pay the
college up front and directly seemed to invite the swift departure;
reimbursement seems better, in any event.
Good luck--Peter Gow
Peter Gow, Director of College Counseling and Special Programs
Beaver Country Day School
791 Hammond Street
Chestnut Hill, MA 02467
www.bcdschool.org
Tel. 617-738-2755
FAX 617-738-2701
Webmaster: www.IndependentEducator.org
[ For info on ISED-L see http://www.gds.org/ISED-L ]
Submissions to ISED-L are released under a creative commons, attribution, non-commercial, share-alike license.
