The Office of Academics provides leadership and direction to the Center for Professional Development, which was created through the merger of five programs: Curriculum, Staff Development, Gifted and Talented, Excel, and Career in Education. The Center provides and supports ongoing, job-embedded professional development for all district staff that includes coaching and reflection on professional practices, as well as specific, targeted instruction in content and pedagogy. It is the clearinghouse for programs and services closely tied to K-12 student work, such as instructional materials and curriculum guides.

At the heart of the Center is Saint Paul's Project for Academic Excellence, which is designed to bring the district's ambitious instructional reform efforts together around a standards-based model. The Project for Academic Excellence is intended to transform the way the core skills of reading, writing, math- ematics, and science are taught and to create cohesive learning communities. The model implements nationally researched, proven practices within standards-based education.

Our goal at the Center for  Professional Development  is to align departments and programs into a core instructional support team to support principals and teachers at their respective schools. The Center is responsible for providing professional devel- opment that supports literacy, integrated math, inquiry science, and other content areas.