IACS is excited to offer professional learning for Christian and Catholic Schools for the 2025-2026 school year!
A NEW UPDATE: We have had great interest in our Professional Learning opportunity. Thank you! Schools have asked if they would be able to sign additional people up (teachers, paraprofessionals, guidance counselors, school staff, etc.) after today’s deadline because they have not been able to connect with all potential attendees (since it’s summer break!). The answer: YES! We will be extending the deadline to register to September 10 for all who want to participate. For those who have already registered, we will still have the live session scheduled on August 20 for your participation and will be getting you materials soon. For those who sign up after today, we will send out the recording and materials of the August session for people to watch and read on their own time. So…we will see all of you who have already registered for the August 20 session (and will send the recording out to those who register after today) and we will see everyone who registers for the September session. Please keep reading for more information and to learn how to register! Thank you for your patience as we try something new.
This year’s topic is focused on challenging behaviors and will feature training on The JONAH Plan from Dr. Kathleen Van Tol, Professor of Education at Dordt University, and Sarah Hawley, Clinical Director of the Dordt University Thrive Center for ABA. With an overwhelmingly positive response from this year’s IACS Summer Series, we want to provide this learning opportunity to your entire faculty and staff throughout the upcoming school year! This professional learning opportunity is available to all IACS member schools, and we encourage you to consider registering teachers, paraprofessionals, guidance counselors, and all who work with students.
The beloved Bible story of Jonah is a dramatic tale of a runaway prophet and a giant fish. This story is also a powerful narrative about compassion, second chances, and doing what is right. Jonah’s journey offers valuable lessons for how we should treat others as well as how we should respond to challenging behavior. The JONAH Plan takes its name and inspiration from Jonah’s journey and is built around three powerful ideas: Just Opportunities, New Actions, and Hope.
- Just Opportunities means doing the right thing. For educators, that means taking the time to explicitly teach rules, expectations, and procedures, model and affirm positive behavior, and provide consistent support.
- New Actions are at the heart of change, and, like Jonah, students often need help turning their actions around. These new actions are learned through coaching, practice, and reinforcement.
- And finally, Hope. The Jonah story ends not in judgment but in the possibility of change. Hope leads us to respond to challenges with patience, to see potential in every situation, and to never give up on a child, even when the journey is messy.
Participants will experience 8 modules of instruction and resources as well as helpful tips and tricks and the ability to ask questions and get advice. Topics will include MTSS/RtI, classroom organization, positive learning atmosphere, establishing expectations, procedures and routines, lesson design, student responses, feedback, working with paraprofessionals, emotional regulation, trauma considerations, motivation, visual schedules and self-monitoring, behavior strategies, data collection, behavior plans, and more.
The model will feature 8 months of professional learning for your faculty and staff. The rhythm of each month includes: module information available for participants to read, a discussion guide for the module reading so you can talk through the learning with your faculty and staff at an on-site gathering, a live Zoom session with Kathleen and Sarah to further learning in the module and answer any questions, and participants determining a “commit to try” that they will complete before the next month’s Zoom session (where they will share with others and learn from teachers across the state).
Dates for the live Zoom sessions will be: August 20, September 17, October 15, November 19, January 21, February 18, March 18, April 15.
All Zoom sessions will be from 3:30 PM-4:30 PM, and they will be recorded, with recordings sent to participants after each session.
Cost is $125 per participant, and licensure renewal is available from Dordt University for an additional $75 per participant.
To register, send Josh Bowar, IACS outreach director, an email at josh@iowachristianschools.org with the names and email addresses of your faculty and staff members who will participate. Indicate who will be seeking licensure renewal credit. IACS will then bill your school for the professional learning opportunity and share more details with participants.
We hope you will join us!