Fall 2026 SOWK 587 Class 11 Weekly Email

See you guys Saturday!

Unit Introduction and What You Will Learn

Week 11 is a synchronous class session held on Saturday, 11/07. During class, we will focus on policy and program development. In the forums, students will focus on professional development and look ahead to their social work careers. We will also consider school policy in the context of this semester’s learning and the process for school-based needs assessments.

The agenda for the in-person class session is:

• Students’ view of school policy
• Needs assessment process
• School intervention assessment and plan

The learning objectives for this week include:

• Identify students’ understanding and engagement with the school policy over the semester.
• Describe the basic steps needed to complete a needs assessment.
• Use professional standards to inform professional growth planning.

Unit Assignments

Read

• Jarolmen and Bautista-Thomas (2023) Chapter 12 School Policy, Program Development, and Evaluation
• Review the information about PGPs published by PESB shared in the resources
• Check out my personal examples

W-11 A-01: Asynchronous Participation and Engagement

We will focus on policy, programs, and evaluation during the in-class section. Professional growth and development, while not directly connected, pair well with these themes. One intention this week is to meet competency F of the Professional Transitions to Public Schools Coursework Requirement (2021; see WAC 181-79A-224), which is to use professional standards to inform professional growth planning. There are four forums this week, and you are expected to make at least three replies across any of the forums. These forums include the following:

• Students share and receive peer feedback on a personally developed plan in the Professional Growth Plans forum, where everyone is asked to create and post their own professional growth plan.
• In Goals and Goal Review, students discuss what it looks like to develop SMART goals, how to review and gather evidence for them, and what effective strategies for reflecting on personal and professional growth look like.
• The Career Development forum invites reflection on professional identity, career trajectory, and updated NASW school social work standards, including strategies for maintaining ethical practice and lifelong learning.
• Textbook Discussion Questions provides a range of prompts from the textbook to engage critically with policy evaluation, needs assessment, and program development within school settings.

Unit Resources

You can listen to a podcast episode for this week’s reading Deep Dive on Chapter 12: Why High Schools Push Students Out, or see the entire series Deep Dive: Jarolmen and Bautista-Thomas (2023).

This week, students are thinking about future professional growth. The Washington State Professional Educator Standards Board (PESB), which is the same organization that accredited this class to qualify for an ESA with a social work endorsement, has many resources on Professional growth plans (PGPs). While not necessary for applying for your initial ESA, for subsequent renewals, OSPI outlines a few ways that social workers can document their professional growth (see School Social Worker Reissue and Renewal and, e.g., 100 clock hours, submitting PGPs, or the documentation I submitted regarding CEUs and my license). I had to make professional growth plans and review them in my district, even if I didn’t submit them to OSPI. PESB has a specific section about PGPs for ESAs. As well, there is a PESB form 1697 that is the actual form to complete.

Professional growth planning is an important topic. I have worked at agencies where planning seems to be based solely on checking the box, and at others where it seems more highly valued. As with any planning or goal-setting, it is up to the recipient to make it useful or not. You are asked to plan your professional growth for the asynchronous parts of this course. I am sharing some of my examples here at Heritage. A few years ago, I went through this process for the first time. I’ve never worked somewhere that required a portfolio as we do here. We upload our content as faculty to Anthology (like your key assignments). I considered creating a shared link so you could see my portfolio (which is prettier than this printout of the portfolio content I am sharing). I opted not to do that, as I do have to provide examples of student work and my grading. While I removed names before uploading the materials for review, I felt it prudent not to share my portfolio in a way that would allow access to all included files and attachments. As our portfolios require evidence, in my printout, you will find “file: name of file” throughout, whereas my submitted portfolio includes the files. This document is very long, and I put significant thought and effort into demonstrating my practice as a faculty member. You can find the 2024-25 Campbell Portfolio attached below as a resource. It provides meaningful information about my pedagogy and the thought process behind my teaching, as well as descriptions of activities I engage in as part of my work.

As faculty, each year we, in collaboration with our department chairs, develop a Professional Development Growth Plan and an Analysis of Faculty Effectiveness/Performance Assessment Summary. This document gets included in our portfolio, and we review it with the provost. The strengths and areas for growth are to be based on Heritage University Key Characteristics of Highly Effective Faculty And Measures of Faculty Success. You can see my 2024-25 Campbell Assessment and Professional Development Growth Plan, which includes my goals for the next academic year and a description of my strengths and areas for growth.

In the forums, I refer you back to the National Association of Social Workers (2025) and their Standards for School Social Workers, which we reviewed earlier this semester. It is a good place to reflect on which areas we should consider for our professional development.

The Lecture Videos tab in the MyHeritage course is where you will be able to find class recordings.

To-Do List

• Attend class
• Read chapter 12 and review resource materials
• Complete at least three replies across any of the forums (make sure one of them is posting an example professional growth plan)