Lincoln High School

Professional Learning Communities complete first year

Teachers and students experienced the power of Professional Learning Communities (PLC) this year.

What is a PLC?  It's a school improvement model designed to improve student learning. 
PLCs are collaborative teams of teachers focused on monitoring individual and overall student learning. The teams review and analyze student performance data, monitor student achievemand on a regular and consistent basis and develop strategies to support individual student achievement.

To ensure every student is learning, teachers meet regularly in PLCs to focus on individual and overall student learning.  The PLC groups focus on four important questions:

• What do we want each student to learn?
• How will we know when each student has learned it?
• How will we respond when a student experiences difficulty in learning?
• How will we respond when a student has already learned essential knowledge and skills?

"We're far enough into the school year that PLCs are beginning to see the gains in student achievement that result from their collaborative work," said Dr. Marilyn Moore, Associate Superintendent for Instruction.

At a PLC Sharing Fair held mid-April, results included:

• Nearly all Huntington Elementary fifth graders benefited from math intervention.
• First graders at Roper Elementary have progressed from no student being proficient on math facts at the beginning of the year, to 86 percent now being proficient.
• Teachers at Riley Elementary described their efforts to implement best practices in helping students edit their writing.  End result?  Students are much better editors!
• Eighty to 90 percent of kindergarten students at West Lincoln Elementary are demonstrating proficiency on reading and math outcomes.
  

The PLC Sharing Fair is held each month.  The conversations not only describe what is working, but "the reality that not every intervention or strategy works," explained Moore.  "Teachers are monitoring and adjusting.  Frequent assessment helps."

At the beginning of the school year, PLCs gathered information and data on every student's literacy and math skills.  If students need help, teachers schedule extra time to work with students.

According to Moore, teachers recognize PLC time together results in learning from each other, learning the importance of good communication and working together to "change the changeable."

At the PLC Sharing Fair in March, a kindergarten teacher said, "We aren't going to have dropouts in LPS, because we're saving them now!"

At the fair in April, an elementary teacher commented, "Teachers' needs are met as well.  We're energized, we've grown and changed."