Guidelines for professional development projects

Professional development projects help teachers acquire knowledge, skills or credentials to improve their craft as a teacher and create a direct impact on student learning.

Professional development projects must clearly describe:

1. The learning objective (eg. socio-emotional teaching techniques)
2. How the learning objective will be achieved (eg. books, conferences, training)
3. How students will benefit (eg. more up-to-date AP content)

Read on to learn about our guidelines for Professional Development projects:

Virtual Trips

Out of an abundance of care for the safety of our teachers and students, and in accordance with the most recent recommendations from the CDC, DonorsChoose will not support trip and visitor projects with in-person or travel components until at least early Winter of 2022. You can still submit a virtual class trip or class visitor project! Check out our help center for more details.

• Event Registration: If you need to submit a deposit to participate in an event, that is a-ok. However, you should not pay out of pocket for the full event registration prior to submitting your project. Our team needs to be directly involved in payment to the vendor.
• Bundled Packages: Bundled pricing for PD events can be requested if there are no ticket types/options. For example a ticket that’s all inclusive for event registration, food, transportation and lodging would be switched for an available ticket for event registration.
• Event Timeline: You can post your project for an event anytime between 2 and 8 months from the date you submit your project, even if it’s next school year

Virtual Visitors

• Visitor projects can request the cost of the virtual visitor. 
• We aren’t able to cover food/lodging/transportation reimbursements for visitors. If those expenses are needed, they should be included in the visitor’s quote.

Resources

• Technology: Resources serve to facilitate your learning! Projects that request technology devices should illustrate how the device will allow you to access professional development resources.

Questions? Reach out to our team.