A head-and-shoulders picture of Robin Kinney.

Interim Commissioner of Education Robin Kinney

Education requires a great deal of professional learning, even after you have graduated college. Our public-school teachers continue to remain committed to finding new ways to reach all of their students by making sure their own education never stops.

More than 900 of Kentucky’s educators convened at the Central Bank Center in Lexington in late September for the 2023 Continuous Improvement Summit, which is cohosted by the Kentucky Department of Education (KDE) and Cognia. The conference is the annual kickoff event for all things continuous improvement and is supported by KDE’s Office of Continuous Improvement and Support.

For two days, these educators learned from the experts on improvement planning, the power of personalized coaching and how to drive continuous improvement through improvement communities. The summit gave attendees the opportunity to invest in their own growth as a leader and a teacher and offered strategies to make a difference in their work and in their students’ experiences.

During the summit, KDE also recognized nine best practice winners and gave them an opportunity to showcase their practices that motivate, engage and provide measurable results in student learning, achievement and school/district processes.

In 2013, KDE launched the Best Practices and Sustainability website to support teachers, administrators, district personnel and any other education advocates seeking strategies that have been proved successful in a variety of settings. Each year, KDE recognizes a select number of those practices that improve student performance, with the goal of improving educational opportunities for all children. Keep an eye on Kentucky Teacher, where we will be doing more in-depth stories about this year’s best practice winners.

I want to thank all of the teachers who attended this event and the administrators that allowed their educators to attend. We hope that attendees left feeling inspired and committed to a culture of continuous improvement and prepared to invest in their institution’s improvement plan.

I know that taking time out of your busy schedules to attend a two-day conference and really engage with the material is not easy.

To learn more about comprehensive improvement planning, please visit KDE’s Comprehensive Improvement Planning webpage.