Fort Wayne Community Schools

Challenge

Managing professional development across the district 

Fort Wayne Community Schools (FWCS) is a group of 52 public schools that serves 30,000 students in the Fort Wayne district in Indiana. Fort Wayne Community Schools is also in the top-5 employers in the county, with over 4,000 employees across various roles. 

With so many employees to manage in a large district, the Fort Wayne Community Schools Human Capital Management department was struggling to keep up with the demands of training and upskilling. Teachers were completing training in a variety of modalities, with little visibility for the school to track completion effectively. “As in every state, we have various mandatory training courses for employees,” says Dr Deanna Surfus, licensing coordinator. “It was time consuming and difficult to keep track of training and ensure compliance. Often, we simply didn’t know who’d done what.” 

At the same time, FWCS faced the familiar problem of teacher shortages, which is particularly acute in such a large district. With so many students, many more teachers are required, but the process to get a teaching license is far from straightforward.  

“Many people come into education as a second or third career, and without pedagogy training they can’t get licensed to teach in Indiana,” explains Deanna Surfus. “Potential new teachers often run into roadblocks with time and money when trying to qualify through traditional college courses.” 

With limited resources, it was also difficult to provide individualized support for every teacher, raising the risk of employee attrition. “When new employees are onboarded, we try to support them as much as possible with resources, feedback sessions and professional growth plans,” comments Amanda Ladig, talent management coordinator. “But disparate processes across schools and our outdated professional learning platform often led to employees getting overwhelmed. They felt like they couldn’t access the tools they needed to be successful in their role.” 

Solution

Developing a centralized platform 

The Human Capital Management Department at Fort Wayne Community Schools decided to centralize their professional development operations to more effectively serve the varied needs of their staff and reduce the challenges of keeping track of different systems across the schools. They developed a solution called Human Capital Management University (HCMU), a university-like system which incorporates all onboarding, training and resources for employees across the school district.  

To ensure the success of HCMU, Fort Wayne Community Schools wanted to host it on a learning management system (LMS) that would be easy to use from both the backend and frontend. The Human Capital Management Department ran a successful pilot with D2L Brightspace, which then became their LMS of choice for hosting HCMU.  

“You have to get buy-in from all groups of people when running a pilot,” says Amanda Ladig. “We had feedback from everyone: leadership, teachers, support staff – even our bus drivers had training on this platform. This ensured that HCMU has something relevant and meaningful for everyone, and not just a handful of random courses.” 

HMCU tailored the setup of courses to be personalized based on their staff. For example, there is a learning group for Principals and unique course material for them to complete that relates to their role.  Within courses, sections are created to differentiate content to subgroups of staff and Brightspace’s Release Conditions allow staff to meet learning requirements and move through courses at their own pace.  

Offering accessible training to aspiring teachers

In addition, while researching solutions for teacher shortages, the department realized that utilizing Brightspace could help FWCS become an educator preparation provider, offering hands-on pedagogical training for those seeking a teaching license. “We realized that we have the capacity in personnel and knowledge to be able to run our own teacher training program,” recalls Deanna Surfus. “And with the Brightspace platform that would be a lot more achievable compared to our old platform.”  

FWCS quickly gained approval from the state to become a provider for training special education teachers. “We do not charge tuition fees; our candidates only pay for their textbooks,” says Deanna Surfus. “We pay for the training, and then candidates sign a commitment to stay with our district for at least three years after earning their license, so that we can get the value of the investment we put into them.” 

Result

Changing the culture and impact of professional learning  

By establishing a single hub for teaching and learning with Brightspace, TCAPS can now offer teachers HCMU, built on the Brightspace platform, has created a cultural shift across Fort Wayne Community Schools. “We were able to change the perception of teacher training, replacing something dreaded and hard to use with a user-friendly and aesthetically engaging online university. Creator+ supports a creative and interactive learning experience for employees,” says Amanda Ladig.  

“The aesthetic matters,” adds Deanna Surfus. “In the past, courses and resources were difficult to read and outdated. But now when you come here, you can see that our staff in the Human Capital Management Department are enjoying designing the courses. As a result, employees get better access to more engaging resources, which helps them stay on top of their training.” 

This centralized approach has also contributed to lower employee turnover. With simpler access to training and resources, employees feel individually supported and are less likely to leave. 

Another benefit of the new platform has been completion tracking and data access for compliance purposes. “We get automatic notifications telling us what is due and when for mandatory training,” says Deanna Surfus. “That’s one use of the platform that has taken a huge weight off our shoulders. It has helped us track across the whole district and ensure we are in compliance with the state.” 

“One of my big priorities is that I have to keep track of all the data for the education preparation program,” continues Deanna Surfus. “After three years, we have to show the state how successful we have been. With the data access function, I can pull all kinds of insights to show them.”

Looking towards the future of staff training 

With the initial success of HCMU, Fort Wayne Community Schools is looking forward to expanding the use cases of the platform. “This is our first year of having a full robust onboarding program, and I really like how Brightspace fits into that,” says Amanda Ladig. “All new employees have an in-person orientation, but then they also get the online course to complement it. One of my goals is to develop these online learning pathways for every role in our district.” 

The opportunity to expand the teacher training program is also within reach. “Right now, we have nine future special educational teachers in there,” says Deanna Surfus. “We have a variety of candidates – some new to the educational sector, some not. One of our candidates was a cafeteria employee at one of our elementary schools, and now there’s a chance of having her teach at that same school. We’re hoping the state approves us for elementary and secondary training next year. It’s an amazing option for anyone looking to transition into teaching and it will be very easy to continue expanding and building with the Brightspace platform.”