Harmony Public Schools

Career Pathways through Micro-credentials 

 Through competency-based micro-credentials Harmony Public Schools is redefining educator career pathways and unifying systems that support teacher growth and career advancement including professional development, licensure, incentive-based pay, and educator evaluation.

Building a Vision for Educator Effectiveness and Instructional Excellence

Micro-credentials accelerate the Core4 and are rooted in the Arc of the Year

  • Micro-credentials are an integral part of Harmony’s PD culture through practice-based learning
  • Micro-credentials are integrated with instructional leadership and coaching
  • Micro-credentials link performance and career pathways
  • Educators have opportunities to earn multiple micro-credentials to grow professionally, advance their career and increase their pay

How Micro-credentials Work

A micro-credential is earned by demonstrating competence in a specific skill via a portfolio of evidence created through classroom practice. All micro-credentials are based on a robust, standardized blueprint, grounded in four areas of instructional efficacy research including, cycles of inquiry, job-embedded supports, rigorously calibrated assessment, and portfolio-based learning.
Learn more about micro-credentials »

Incentives and Benefits

Harmony teachers are:

  • Teacher leaders who are always striving to become better practitioners
  • Reflective and open to new challenges
  • Innovative and earn micro-credentials because it allows them to play a critical role in shaping competency-based professional earning for educators across the state and country

Educators who earn micro-credentials are eligible for the following benefits and incentives:

$200 stipend per earned MC, up to 8 per year (only for teachers and bands 5/6)
15 CPE hours 
Career advancement and professional growth (evaluation portfolio, goal setting, and “aspiring” programs)
hexagon Opportunity to earn a TIA teacher designation (40% of teacher portfolio component can be completed with earned micro-credentials)


Hear What Educators Are Saying

Watch the video to hear what other Harmony educators have to say about their experiences with micro-credentials.

Don’t Go It Alone! Leverage Your Supports

While individuals are welcome to engage with micro-credentials on their own, we find that educators experience the most success when they work collaboratively with others or when receiving guided support from a supervisor, coach, or mentor. 

Additionally, embedding micro-credentials into existing PLCs and professional learning experiences is a great way to add clarity and structure, as well as ensure implementation of learning into day-to-day work. 

Note: though collaboration is encouraged, all submissions must still be unique representations of an educator’s individual competency! Evidence that is identical or nearly identical to another submission will not be accepted. Before getting started, please review BloomBoard’s collaboration policy and some best practices for working with others.

All-Access Micro-endorsements

These micro-endorsements contain the essential competencies for classroom teachers at Harmony. All HPS educators and leaders should be able to add these micro-endorsements to their dashboards: CTC I, Non-Tested Teacher, Distance Learning. Access to CTC II will be granted once an educator has completed CTC I. Foundation of Addressing Student Well-Being micro-endorsements focus on learning and develop strategies and tools for developing relationships with students, different methods of assessing student well-being, communicating student needs to family supports, and effectively addressing the needs of individual students. These micro-endorsements is new pathway for teachers. For questions related to micro-endorsement access, please submit this form.

Not sure how to add an ME to your Dashboard? Watch this brief soundless video.

Your Title Goes Here

Your content goes here. Edit or remove this text inline or in the module Content settings. You can also style every aspect of this content in the module Design settings and even apply custom CSS to this text in the module Advanced settings.

Core Teaching Competencies I

Educators in this micro-endorsement have access to the following micro-credentials: 

Choices: Cultivating High Behavioral Expectations with TLAC, Creating Habits Around Effective Questioning, Eliciting Student Thinking to Accurately Inform Student Instruction, Modifying Instruction through Formative Assessments During a Lesson, Developing Habits of Writing to Build Student Thinking, Developing Habits of Effective Discussions, Cultivating High Academic Expectations with TLAC, Planning and Preparing for Effective Instruction with TLAC

In-classroom Leadership Micro-endorsements

This list, though not exhaustive, represents some of Harmony’s key in-classroom leadership roles. If you currently hold one or more of the roles listed below but do not have access that micro-endorsement on BloomBoard please complete this form.  BloomBoard will confirm your role status with Harmony leadership and, if confirmed, will grant you access to the corresponding micro-endorsement. This process may take up to 5 business days.

Not sure how to add an ME to your Dashboard? Watch this brief soundless video.

Your Title Goes Here

Your content goes here. Edit or remove this text inline or in the module Content settings. You can also style every aspect of this content in the module Design settings and even apply custom CSS to this text in the module Advanced settings.

ESL Specialist
Foundations of Addressing Student Well-Being
Interventionist

Educators in this role have access to the following micro-credentials: 

Interventionists ELA K-1
MC Ambassador

Out-of-classroom Leadership Micro-endorsements

This list, though not exhaustive, represents some of Harmony’s key out-of-classroom leadership roles. If you currently hold one or more of the roles listed below but do not have access that micro-endorsement on BloomBoard please complete this form.  BloomBoard will confirm your role status with Harmony leadership and, if confirmed, will grant you access to the corresponding micro-endorsement. This process may take up to 5 business days.

Not sure how to add an ME to your Dashboard? Watch this brief soundless video.

Your Title Goes Here

Your content goes here. Edit or remove this text inline or in the module Content settings. You can also style every aspect of this content in the module Design settings and even apply custom CSS to this text in the module Advanced settings.

ESL Specialists
Foundations of Addressing Student Well-Being

Educators in this role have access to the following micro-credentials: 

Note: This micro-endorsement has Dependent Artifacts.

Gifted and Talented Coordinator

Educators in this role have access to the following micro-credentials: 

Leader Residents

Teacher Incentive Allotment (TIA) and Designation

Micro-credentials play an important role in Harmony’s TIA plan starting with 2020-21 school year. Teachers must earn multiple micro-credentials in order to maximize their overall performance score, which can help them earn a designation! 

 

Resources

HPS MC Supports Playbook

This playbook seeks to empower Harmony educators and leaders in accessing and implementing the supports that are most aligned with their local context and needs.

Getting Smart on Competency-Based Career Advancement

This five-part blog series published by Getting Smart documents the district’s journey to competency-based learning.

|

Case Studies & Testimonials

Coming soon!

BloomBoard Support

Contact us anytime at support@bloomboard.com

How do I participate?

It’s very likely you already have a BloomBoard account! If you’re not sure of your login credentials go to https://my.bloomboard.com/ and click “Forgot Password.”