At North Attleborough Public Schools in Massachusetts, leaders know that effective professional development isn’t about one-size-fits-all workshops or overwhelming libraries of disconnected resources. It’s about meeting teachers and staff exactly where they are—offering learning that is timely, manageable, and meaningful. In this case study conversation, RocketPD Co-Founder Corey Murray asks district administrators Corrine Brems and Talley Clyde how their team is prioritizing flexible, consistent, and high-quality professional learning experiences that truly resonate with educators’ real-world needs.
Through their partnership with RocketPD and the LaunchPad™ platform, North Attleborough’s leaders have found a powerful solution to a familiar challenge: delivering just-in-time, job-embedded learning without adding to the time crunch teachers already face. In this video, they explain how LaunchPad’s structured, consistent course design, expert-led content, and practical workbooks have helped create a new culture of reflection, dialogue, and application across their schools—from building-level leadership teams to full staff PD days. Their story offers a firsthand look at what’s possible when professional development is designed with both quality and flexibility in mind.
00:00:11
Corey, co-founder, RocketPD: All right, so Corinne and Talley, thank you so much for hanging out with me for a few minutes. We’ve already talked a lot about this idea that teachers and staff are stressed, right? They’re time crunched. Um, they say they’re passionate about what they do. They want to do a great job, but they need access to resources that can help them in a way that makes sense for how they work. And so I know that that’s something that you guys have been thinking a lot about.
00:00:37
Corrine Brems, curriculum, Title I and Title IIA director: Talley and I and our district, we always try to ensure consistent, effective professional development for not only our teachers, but for every staff member in our district, um, and across various schools with our calendar, we have two professional development days that we try to hit as many things as we possibly can. And, you know, we always have those background things to it might be a new program that we need to make sure that we train our staff on. Um. It might be a mandate that we need to train staff on, but having that engaging, customized, professional learning that means something to our staff members is really important to us.
00:01:22
Corey: That’s a really interesting thing, this sort of notion of sort of the just in time topics, right? Because they the situation does change quickly on the ground. And I think one of the things that we realized was we want to have, um, and the ability, um, to provide a platform that can change as the needs change. You know, I saw prior to when we started doing this, so many people doing PD and, you know, it was just like, come here and look at our library of like 700 topics. And it’s kind of like when you go to a restaurant and there’s so much stuff on the menu that you don’t know what to order. And then you get into those topics and you also realize that there’s no consistency to them.
00:02:01
Corrine: For our administrators. Um, these pertinent topics, um, Kim Marshall’s rethinking teacher evaluation was so valuable for our administrators. Um, Carla’s adult well-being and staff retention. All administrators are talking about those topics, so these are very pertinent. Um, they are with the times, as Talley said. But we’re also able to say, let’s watch one lesson right now and maybe just spend five minutes discussing it, and we’ll see you next week at our next meeting for our next lesson. Um, or it might be next month. In some cases. We sometimes have staff meetings just once a month. But these are manageable pieces that we can be done in three months, tops or less if we wanted or if we want to spread it out. And one of our ideas is to have almost like a book club, um, with these courses, if we want to really spread it out and have those deep conversations and dialog, we can do that too. But the the format of all of these being consistent, we know each time, if we ask somebody to do one of these or offer one to somebody, we know what what to expect.
00:03:16
Talley Clyde, curriculum coordinator, grades 6-12: I just think we know best practices. Routines are good for kids. When kids know what to expect, behavior becomes more regulated, etc. it’s it’s a best practice for teachers as well when it comes to professional development.
00:03:28
Corey: I’m glad you said that. It was one of the things that we thought long and hard about was, how do we create something that is consistent, right, that people can be familiar with, but also like it’s chunked out in a way or broken out in a way that allows them to get through it in the time that they have. So I know that you guys, um, you just started using launchpad, but I’ve heard some really great stories coming out of the district about the way that you’re doing things.
00:03:55
Corrine: We felt before we brought in this platform, we had to have buy in from our leaders. We decided as a team we created our own little cohort. And we did choose Kim Marshall’s Rethinking Teacher evaluation course. Um, we all sat there together. At first in a room, and we watched the first lesson of Kim. Um, and we had our workbook, our journal, which is so valuable. Um, the questions in here just guiding us through, um, very thought provoking. And I think this is where really we started to use, um, think pair share immediately with this because this is already set up, um, with that structure in mind. So there was time for our, for us and our principles to, to think to ourselves at first and to really reflect on our own practices, on our own individual buildings, as the district as a whole. For us, because every building has their own, has its own culture. They’re so different.
00:05:00
Talley: One of the things that I am a huge fan of with the workbook is that it’s not a, you know, expert tells you what to write. You write it down. They don’t match. They complement each other. And, um, that Meant that what could be a 60 minute PD session, if you just kind of watched the videos dutifully filled in your own thoughts, you might be able to finish that in 60 to 75 minutes. I’m guessing that was never going to happen with this group. We didn’t even, we weren’t even able to watch the video and get through the worksheet, because we were so busy responding and sharing and asking questions.
00:05:34
Corey: And yeah, you really hit on something that I just that really thrills me, right? Which is this notion that I think a lot of people think this or realize this over time. But professional development, what it really is, it’s about implementation, implementation of ideas, changing the way we’re doing things to do things better or more effectively with our schools. And that’s not a linear process, right? You can’t just check boxes to get to that point. It requires thoughtful discussion. It requires thoughtful implementation. It requires some pushback.
00:06:06
Corrine: Another big way that we’re going to be rolling this out actually is in April during our next professional development day. We have a staff wide professional development day, and we are going to have administrators lead or facilitate about probably nine different classrooms, if you will. And we’re going to have A.J.’s artificial intelligence course for at least half of them, and we may choose another one. We’re still playing around with that. Um, but staff members will be able to choose to go into any of those classrooms and take the course with an administrator right there.
00:06:49
Talley: There are names available on the platform that, um, a lot of teachers are going to recognize. And, um, and I think a great example of the way rocket PD is growing is that Jenn Gonzalez is so popular with teachers. Catlin Tucker is somebody that I trust and I already know. And so to think to myself, My God, I can learn from Catlin Tucker. You know, my district is paying for me to do that. Like I’m in it’s not about flash. There is substance there. There is research there. There is credibility. I don’t really know a better word than that.
00:07:22
Corrine: I think the customizable, um, on demand piece is really what drew me to it. And actually, I’m going to bring that back. Customizable on demand, but high quality because there are others that are customizable and on demand and not this quality, not the thought that went into it. And again, I’m going to hold this up. The thought that went behind all of these that could lead our teachers, um, it’s just amazing. And I can’t wait to roll it out to have more and more staff members, um, interacting with it.
Learn How RocketPD Can Partner with Your School or District
Ready to empower your staff with flexible, expert-led professional learning that truly drives change? Explore RocketPD’s LaunchPad™ today and discover how our on-demand, high-impact video courses can help your educators grow their skills, deepen collaboration, and spark meaningful results. Learn more about LaunchPad™ here ➔
