This publication is a collection of supportive material to aid educational personnel in planning programs for staff development and improvement. It is the result of an effort in 1973 by the Georgia Teacher Education Council's committee on staff development to devise a plan that would allow local agencies to: (1) identify student needs and the competencies needed by educational personnel to meet these needs; and (2) plan training activities for teachers, administrators, and other school personnel to prepare them to meet the identified needs. Out of this effort, Georgia's educational community was able to clarify its position on improving education, and the concept of continuous improvement of education personnel was formulated. This concept was further developed to incorporate three beliefs: (1) that the direction of local staff development ought to be determined largely by the needs of the local students; (2) student achievement is greatly affected by the competencies of teachers and principals; and (3) the continued certification of educational personnel ought to be based on how well they demonstrate proficiency in the competencies needed for student improvement in an actual educational setting. All of these staff development efforts culminated in the development of a set of standards for certification renewal. The discussion of these standards is the heart of this publication. Included with the statement of the standards are: (1) the operational definitions of several pertinent terms not directly defined in the statement of standards; (2) a discussion of each standard with suggestions for implementation; (3) a suggested developmental timeline; and (4) references to relevant resources that might aid in the planning and implementation of a similar program. (MM)