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It is interesting to review the literature around staff development for support staff members in the field of education. The literature is packed with strategies, techniques, and tools used for faculty but limited to dealing with educational support staff.
In the business world the first to receive training is often the frontline workers --- those closest to the public. Workers are taught to deal with customers, the correct way to make cash register change, utilization of technology, and building security. In education, traditionally we have trained administrators and supervisors with professional experts in a given field. Classroom teachers were, in turn, trained by those who received the initial training (implementing a training of trainers model). Often overlooked were support staff personnel. Too often this group was expected to learn from each other or the “old timers.”
In the book The Principalship: Concepts and Practices, authors Ralph B. Kimbrough and Charles W. Burkett make a profound statement when they state, “The most important person in a school is not the principal; it is the student most in need of individual attention to his needs as a learner. However, the person most able to provide the optimum combination of staff, resources, materials, and methods for that student is the school principal” (Burkett, p 11).
Employee development for school support staff personnel is only a recent phenomenon in the United States. Three types of employee development are common: on-the-job, off-the-job, and apprenticeships. In the past training for support staff centered around focused topic specific to their job description. “Nevertheless, there is a growing awareness that secretaries, custodians, bus drivers, and cafeteria workers will perform more efficiently if they are given the opportunity to participate in personal growth activities” (Rebore, p 175).
The on-the-job training model is perhaps the most effective. Research is clear that learning in context has the greatest return and when a new employee is learning “by doing,” she/he can feel immediate gratification by making use of the new knowledge. The drawback to on-the-job training is the period of low productivity as the employee learns the new skills and that learning becomes routine.
Off-the-job training is the method often used in business settings and has the employee attend lectures, view training tapes, take part in workshops, go to seminars, go through a programmed instruction model, or utilize case studies and simulations. This model finds the employee going through hypothetical situations outside the work place and is designed to allow her/him to develop ideas about how to react or respond when confronted by the situation or problem.
Apprenticeship training is the oldest training form. The new employee serves as an understudy for a master/veteran worker. The apprenticeship model most often takes the form of a veteran mentor helping her/his replacement gain understanding and experience in the work setting. The apprenticeship may be the most expensive of the training models because of the duplication of workers doing basically the same job. On the other hand, however, it is the method that may, in the end, produce a seamless transfer of duties when someone leaves a position and a new worker assumes the duties (Rebore, p 176).
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