Teachers in the Saratoga Union School District are begging for more minimum days like Oct. 13 and 14 last month, also called professional-development days. They are days when Argonaut Elementary School first-grade teacher Helen Green tells her students she's in "teacher school."

"I'm so excited about the time to converse deeply with my colleagues," she said.

Last year, a professional-development committee worked to have professional-development days approved by the Saratoga Union School District board of trustees. There were several forums that involved parents in the process. For the district's elementary schools serving grades K-5, nine minimum-day Wednesdays throughout the school year were approved, and 14 early out days were authorized at Redwood Middle School, which serves grades 6­8.

"We need another Wednesday," pleaded fourth-grade Argonaut Elementary School teacher Heidi Pierce.

Rosalie Chako, one of the coordinators of the program, said the days give teachers "job-embedded" professional-development time to analyze student writing, discuss trends, successes and areas for student growth. The Saratoga Union School District also consolidated several committees to form one district leadership team, to oversee the program, and each district school also has a site leadership team. The program will be evaluated in terms of its effectiveness, Chako said, to determine whether it will continue in future years.

Chako said professional development is a way for teachers to converse among and across grade levels about how to help students who are below standard in writing skills. On Oct. 13 and 14, they also discussed best teaching practices, differentiated instruction and worked on lesson plans to meet all student needs in writing.

"The different teams are at different stages of calibration and scoring the writing samples. They are madly pouring over stacks and stacks of writing samples," said Redwood Assistant Principal Alex Chapman. "The value to our school is to come up with some group agreements of what is good writing and getting our staff all together on board."

Parents are being informed about the progress of professional development time through monthly and weekly school newsletters, he added. Redwood Middle School, in partnership with the Los Gatos­Saratoga Community Education and Recreation Department, is also offering unique after-school activities such as theater, soccer, Indian culture, a comedy class, percussion class and more. These classes were designed to help accommodate students who may have working parents who might not be able to pick their students up after school on minimum days.

Redwood seventh-grade teachers Amy Duren, Nancy Coleman, Harry Dill, Shannon Avina, Susan Germeraad, Pam Demertzis and Paul Navarro all teach different subjects but share the same students. So they said professional-development days were extremely valuable to them.

"We're getting on the same page," said Dill during a team meeting.

"It's really going to help us target areas where the students are doing well and areas where they need improvement," Avina said. "It's priceless because we never get this time together."