All Things PLC Magazine - Fall 2019 by Solution Tree

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PLC M A G A Z I N E Fall 2019

I S TA KI N G A L EA P

THE LAST STEP BEFORE F LY I N G

Streaming Solutions With our LiveStream Events, inspirational keynotes and interactive breakout sessions can be viewed as they are happening, uniting large teams in the same learning experienced at the event. Choose a LiveStream Event to: • Participate in an engaging live-stream broadcast featuring some of our most sought-after experts. • Receive on-site support from a certified associate who will lead your event and help connect session content to your team’s needs. • Receive the same helpful event materials—handouts, resources, and more—as attendees at the live event. • Engage with education leaders and other event attendees through the event’s website.

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Expect to see what’s possible when your team learns together

With Solution Tree Wired Events, you can stream one of our Model Agendas or use our library of recorded expert keynotes to create your own agenda. Choose a Wired Event to: • Work with our team to build a personalized agenda using recorded keynotes from our most sought-after experts. • Receive on-site support from a certified PLC or RTI at Work™ associate who will lead your event and facilitate group discussions. • Cultivate a positive team spirit and use collaborative team time to help achieve your desired learning outcomes. • Select a resource from a list of our best-selling titles to give to each attendee. The Foundations PLC at Work® Model Agenda is designed for those who are new to the PLC at Work process or need a refresher in the beginning stages of implementation. The Sustaining PLC at Work® Model Agenda helps teams already on the PLC journey to continue their work. The RTI at Work™ Model Agenda assists educators in developing a plan for building a powerful, multitiered system of support.

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Nicole Dimich

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PLC M A G A Z I N E

Fa l l 2 0 1 9

Features A Team’s Journey to Establish PLC Principles in Higher Education Sazama, Beddoes, Starck, and McMullen

A look at the challenges and triumphs in higher ed.

Hope on the Hill Tammy Miller

A look at the indomitable spirit of Stanton Elementary.

Stomping Out PLC Lite

Janel Keating and Meagan Rhoades Why halfway just doesn’t cut it.

Leading Mathematics Teams Using the Four Critical Questions Mona Toncheff

It’s all about the numbers.

14 21 28

To o l s & R e s o u rc e s fo r I n s p i ra t i o n a n d E xce l l e n ce

First thing

Héctor García discusses the momentum of a new school year.

PLC Clinic

Where do I start?

Skill shop

The power of an action research planning tool.

FAQs about PLCs

The principal principle.

Data quest

A tool for a team’s analysis of common formative assessments.

Learning champion

Mark Weichel talks with us about leadership.

The recommender

Robin Noble talks about the power of coaching.

Classic R&D

Delving into W. Edwards Deming and organizational development.

Contemporary R&D

Finding out how teachers collaborate in America’s schools.

Why I love PLCs

No longer alone!

Discussion questions and refresher course tear-out To-go resources for your PLC professional development.

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PLC M A G A Z I N E

SOLUTION TREE: CEO Jeffrey C. Jones

PRESIDENT Edmund M. Ackerman SOLUTION TREE PRESS:

PRESIDENT & PUBLISHER Douglas M. Rife ART DIRECTOR Rian Anderson PAGE DESIGNERS Abigail Bowen, Laura Cox, Jill Resh, Rian Anderson

AllThingsPLC (ISSN 2476-2571 [print], 2476-258X [Online]) is published four times a year by Solution Tree Press. 555 North Morton Street Bloomington, IN 47404 800.733.6786 (toll free) / 812.336.7700 FAX: 812.336.7790 email: info@SolutionTree.com SolutionTree.com POSTMASTER Send address changes to Solution Tree, 555 North Morton Street, Bloomington, IN, 47404 Copyright © 2019 by Solution Tree Press

AllThingsPLC Magazine/Fall 2019

First Thing The MOMENTUM of a New School Year

Héctor García

here is always something powerful about the summer and the effect it has on staff. Every year, staff members walk into school buildings with a noticeable sense of optimism, energy, and enthusiasm.

What if leaders and leadership teams could build on this positive momentum to ensure high levels of learning for all students? Unfortunately, as leaders and leadership teams reflect over the summer, they are often faced with disparate data sets and a multitude of external pressures that lead to diving quickly into an action plan with multiple tasks. It is not unusual for leadership teams to immediately begin the work, develop timelines, establish accountability processes, and forgo the enthusiasm of a new school year. But what if leaders and leadership teams focused first on developing the right mindset or conditions for the school year? In Leaders of Learning, Richard DuFour and Robert Marzano (2011) contend that “creating the conditions to help others succeed is one of the highest duties of a leader” (p. 86). Outstanding schools and districts focus on establishing the right conditions by developing a palpable sense of mission and vision that transcends the day-to-day operations and energizes the staff for the work at hand. In this sort of organization, staff members are keenly focused on how their work contributes to greater aspirations for their students. Fortunately, establishing these conditions in a school is not dependent on external funding or a fortuitous incident. But the school must be deliberate in establishing the conditions for the staff to experience success. One of the critical first steps is to have the right mindset about confronting challenges and obstacles that are inevitable every school year. As best-selling author Simon Sinek stipulates, “there are only two ways to influence human behavior: you can manipulate it or you can inspire it” (2009, p. 17). The start of the school year is a wonderful opportunity to inspire the staff, to reflect on why the school is implementing new procedures or enhancing instructional efforts. Effective schools often use this opportunity to connect the

why to the essence or the inspirational aspect of working with students. As we know, there is always something energizing about being a part of a greater cause, and the leadership team must not miss the chance to engage the staff in reconnecting to the gift of working with kids or in simply stating their why. Professional learning communities give leaders and leadership teams the ability to transition from aspirations to next steps. Yet, schools must be mindful of the natural tendency to give staff members ideas and strategies without taking into account key factors that often undermine even the best practices. For example, if implementing PLC principles is going to be at the core of the school year, it is critical that every effort is made to ensure clarity, focus, and support throughout the year. Consider sharing the following three quotes with your leadership team or staff and discuss what principles have been solidified, are stable, or need special attention. Explicitness: “Clarity precedes competence.”

—Becky DuFour Focus: “Extraordinary results are directly determined by

how narrow you can make your focus.” —Gary Keller

Support: “For every increment of performance I ask of

you, I have an equal responsibility to provide you with the capacity to meet expectations.” —Richard Elmore As staff members begin a new year, leadership teams must continue to establish the conditions for success by maintaining the inspirational aspect of the work at the forefront of every key initiative and ensuring that distracting factors are minimized. This is a wonderful time to reflect and ensure that the new year starts with the right conditions for every staff member to be successful. Consider the following question when your leadership team meets to set the right mindset: How do we want staff members to walk away from the first meeting of the year? Resources DuFour, R., & Marzano, R. J. (2011). Leaders of learning: How district, school, and classroom leaders improve student achievement. Bloomington, IN: Solution Tree Press. Sinek, S. (2009). Start with why: How great leaders inspire everyone to take action. New York: Penguin.

Do you have a PLC Story? Our readers want to hear it. Being involved in a PLC means following proven processes, but what we really want to hear about is your personalized story. Your perspective. A specific telling about you or someone you know. An administrator, a teacher, or a student. Triumphs, failures, and the road between the two. We’re looking for: Feature articles of 2,000–3,000 words Articles about your school’s PLC journey in 2,000–3,000 words Or write for our Why I Love PLCs section in 500–700 words Send your submissions or queries to: MagSubmissions@SolutionTree.com

HOPE ON THE HILL: Frank Lebby Stanton Elementary

by Tammy Miller

he red-brick three-story building on top of a hill nestled between historic Mozley Park and the West Lake MARTA transit station on Martin Luther King Junior Drive in the southwest corner of Atlanta is Frank Lebby Stanton Elementary. Over 100 years old, the school is located in the infamous zip code 30314, which is known for violent crimes and represents the fifth most dangerous neighborhood in the United States. An old sign at the entrance of the school driveway names Frank L. Stanton as a Georgia â&#x20AC;&#x153;Four Star School,â&#x20AC;? marking the glory days of the school and better times in the neighborhood. At the foot of the hill, near the exit, is a place alleged to be home to unsavory transactions. Activities there appear to

attract a diverse group, male and female, of varied ages throughout the day whose faces are often expressionless. In the past two years, a child was attacked while walking to school through the neighboring park and two others were attacked by pit bulls while walking to the bus stop. One of the two students died; the other was so badly hurt, she spent months in the hospital. During my first visit to the school, I was told that no transportation service would

pick me up after 3:00 p.m. due to crime in the area, so I would need to either leave before that time or use a rental car. It was on this first visit that I met Dr. Phyllis Earls, principal of Frank L. Stanton. She told me stories of the school, interwoven with the tragedies, and stated that the school was experiencing some successes, though incrementally small. As she poured out the truth that day, my soul cried. The stories were unfathomable for our children and teachers to endure. On entering the building that first day, I found the bright and hopeful faces of the children sparkling against the aging though well-maintained building that had seen better days. I kept wondering how the children could thrive against these odds. On one of my coaching visits to the school, Earls woefully said to me, “The stakeholders here believe this school will save their children.” Frank L. Stanton is the “hope on the hill” for the children of this neighborhood. The school is seen as a beacon of hope, a means of providing them with a choice-filled future full of promise. Regretfully, this was an unfilled promise as the student reading abilities were averaging at least two years behind grade level and the pass rates for the state assessment, Georgia Milestones Assessment System (GMAS), showed tremendous deficits over multiple years. In fact, the school was on the state’s failing schools list. The College and Career Ready Performance Index (CCRPI) is Georgia’s annual tool for measuring how well its schools and districts perform. With a CCRPI score of 51.1 with an average pass rate of 30 percent in math and reading for the 2016–17 school year, coupled with low student enrollment, there was a strong possibility that Atlanta Public Schools would have to close the doors on Frank L. Stanton. The preliminary announcement to close schools in the Douglass Cluster, which included Frank L. Stanton Elementary School, occurred around the same time as the funeral services for the student killed by the dog. The entire staff of teachers and administrators all gathered together at the podium during the funeral in a spontaneous gesture as Principal Earls and the student’s teacher offered remarks and condolences to the family. The tragedy of the loss of a student was an extreme blow to the school’s community, not to mention the possibility of school closure. The closure would be devastating to the families and students of Frank L. Stanton as the school was their hope for the future. Once the staff were aware, they respectfully rallied their desire to remain open during a community cluster meeting. Miraculously, their voices were heard, and Superintendent Carstarphen visited the school to charge the staff with focusing on strengthening their instructional practices to improve the school’s CCRPI ratings overall. The school remained open, and the faculty and staff vowed their commitment to turn it around. This was a critical moment of collective responsibility for the entire staff of Frank L. Stanton and the beginning of their success story. Following this victory for the students and teachers, principals in the Douglass Cluster were offered an opportunity to receive additional turnaround support from the district and specifically an invitation to receive support from Solution Tree Priority Schools coaches if they were interested. Earls volunteered, and the partnership between Solution Tree and Frank L. Stanton started in the spring of 2017. The journey began with coaching to help teachers understand the “right work” of a professional learning community while simultaneously determining

Fall 2019/AllThingsPLC Magazine

the obstacles that were preventing the school from making progress. A customized plan that addressed the obstacles was critical when there was such urgency for results. A needs assessment was conducted that provided insight into the systems that were not functioning and a necessary culture shift that would be vital to the turnaround of the school. Three levers (instructional planning, data-driven decision-making, and cultural shifting) were used to develop a customized plan that addressed the obstacles. A failure cycle had taken root at the school over the past decade, which eroded the culture and, subsequently, student achievement. The teachers began to look at individual student data and how the learning of each was impacted in their current reality. Faces and names personalized the work and brought meaning to the data. This painted a picture that leveraged a desire to learn more about what could be done to save each student. As teachers began to see a few students demonstrate mastery of the guaranteed and viable curriculum, the fire was ignited and a spirit of collective responsibility among the teachers began to take hold. As the teachers began to see the connection between their daily work and student learning, the culture shifted to where learning was required and students were not blamed. Paramount in the culture shift was the courageous Dr. Earls. She became the true culture keeper of the school and began to empower her staff in leadership and decisionmaking for moving the school forward to help all students learn at high levels. This was a heavy lift for Earls because of a lingering dark cloud that was hanging over Frank L. Stanton Elementary. The school had been involved in the Georgia cheating scandal on state assessments and the subsequent removal of the former 16

AllThingsPLC Magazine/Fall 2019

principal. Earls, as the replacement principal, had the nearly impossible task of making the school campus safe, restoring dignity to the school, creating a renewed focus on learning, and correcting a multitude of managerial and fiscal issues. Her never-faltering high expectations for learning and students at the heart of the work steadfastly guided the culture transformation of Frank L. Stanton. Her patience and relentless effort to make it right for the children and teachers are becoming legendary in Atlanta. The culture shift did take time and coaching toward the PLC implementation with true fidelity. A great obstacle in the work was modifying the district curriculum guides with a timeline that included multiple opportunities for students to learn and demonstrate mastery of the standards. Coverage rather than mastery had been the emphasis. This presented a tremendous stumbling block for the teachers as they wanted to be compliant but clearly recognized that the students needed enough time to master the material. One hot August summer day as we sat in the office surrounded by walls we had covered with chart paper of ideas, Earls, Sharon

Green (the assistant principal), and I hammered away at a plan to both be compliant and get mastery on the most critical skills embedded in each standard. This came from an invaluable lesson from Rick DuFour about the power of and. When the teachers returned for the school year, they aligned the Frank L. Stanton guaranteed and viable curriculum with a timeline for mastery with the district expectations. This was a win for the students and teachers who built the momentum needed to propel the hard work forward. Teachers were empowered to ensure the learning occurred while also following the district guidelines. They owned the solution and put forth tremendous effort to make it happen. Once this hurdle was overcome, the response to intervention work needed to be addressed. Interventions were given by strategists and interventionists who either pushed in or pulled students from their assigned classroom teachers. However, the interventions were not always personalized and targeted for each student to be proficient. Students could be receiving up to three unrelated interventions in a school day, and the delivery was programmatic not systematic in nature. Rather than teaching each standard and learning target until

the student was proficient, the time was spent more on the delivery of the intervention program content. This meant that the interventions were also not timely and not occurring in tandem with the work in the classroom. We began to realign the Tier 1 and 2 intervention plans to work with the guaranteed and viable curriculum schoolwide. Additionally, the daily schedule was adjusted to accommodate the needs of Tier 3 students, particularly to close their achievement gaps in reading. It is difficult to describe how complex it is to mastermind the intervention schedule to actually get results. The essence of collective responsibility becomes so clear in this adjustment as it is no longer about equity for teachers but equitable opportunity for students to learn. Teachers had to adjust to extra support staff being moved to the needs of the students rather than assigned time to a particular classroom. The intervention plan changes were implemented, but it was not operating with full efficacy and utilizing an all-handson-deck approach. A critical point had arrived in the school year; it was January of 2018 and the potential of the school being closed was more glaring as 2018 marked the year for the school to demonstrate CCRPI gains. The Georgia Department of Education had announced that there were three schools to be considered for closure and one of them was Frank L. Stanton. The tension was mounting at the school, but this only fueled the determination of the teachers. A true

Fall 2019/AllThingsPLC Magazine

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THE RECOMMENDER Robin Noble

The Power of Coaching In a PLC

I still remember fondly every coach I had as I began playing softball as a kid and then continued through high school and college. I’m sure this is because they not only helped me develop my skills as an athlete, but they also celebrated my successes along the way. I’m guessing that many of you can also recall a beloved coach who guided you toward better performance in sports, music, the arts, or another activity you were devoted to doing well. As it turns out, coaches are also very important in the workplace. Current research indicates that organizations that focus on and support effective coaching not only show increases in employee engagement, but they see increases in employees’ sense of self-efficacy as well (Baron & Morin, 2010; Mone, Eisinger, Guggenheim,

Price, & Stine, 2011). With this in mind, it’s no surprise that the instructional coach has become such an important role in schools and districts throughout the country. However, we all need to be equipped to help coach and develop those around us in a PLC community. It is the foundation of our commitment to collaborate and learn from one another. As we engage in action research and move toward more effectively meeting the needs of all students, it is imperative for us to learn from one another. This means we all need to be effective coaches. The good news is there are several authors who are explicitly teaching educators how to become better coaches in their

buildings around critical foundational topics of the PLC at Work framework. Whether you are an instructional coach, a principal, or an educator in your building, the following resources can help you become a better coach while increasing engagement and self-efficacy in your schools, teams, and classrooms. My hope is you find these to be valuable resources as you work to increase and fine-tune your skills in coaching one another toward excellence!

• Make It Happen: Coaching With the Four Critical Questions of PLCs at Work. Authors Kim Bailey and Chris Jakicic offer advice on effective coaching strategies while giving you specific tools, strategies, and processes to ensure your collaborative teams are focused on the right work of the four critical questions of a PLC. • Amplify Your Impact: Coaching Collaborative Teams in a PLC at Work. In this book, authors Tom Many, Michael Maffoni, Susan Sparks, and Tesha Ferriby Thomas offer a coaching framework that ensures you gain the skills most critical for coaching and creating high-functioning collaborative teams in your PLC. • Taking Action: A Handbook for RTI at Work. Austin Buffum, Mike Mattos, and Janet Malone’s new book takes you through the critical steps of developing a solid RTI at Work culture and framework in your school. In addition, they have included specific and effective coaching strategies at the end of each chapter that will help you achieve better buy-in and expertise when forming solid RTI at Work systems in your school.

ROBIN NOBLE is a consultant with more than 25 years of experience in education. She has served as an elementary school principal, district instructional coach, academic dean, middle school English teacher, and special education teacher.

References Baron, L., & Morin, L. (2010). The impact of executive coaching on self-efficacy related to management soft-skills. Leadership & Organization Development, 31(1), 18–38. Mone, E., Eisinger, C., Guggenheim, K., Price, B., & Stine, C. (2011). Performance management at the wheel: Driving employee engagement in organizations. Journal of Business Psychology, 26(2), 205–212.

Fall 2019/AllThingsPLC Magazine

Why I Love PLCs Why I Love PLCs: No Longer Alone BY MANDY BARRETT

Take a moment to reflect on your first days in the classroom as an educator— your own teacher’s desk, 25 (or more) empty student desks, two or three bare bulletin boards, and those amazing manuals chock full of all the things you would teach your students over the next nine months. Ahhh . . . to crack open those manuals and figure it all out. On your own. Alone. Isolated. Fast-forward a few months into that first year. You started to notice some students were getting it and some weren’t. But, you had taught what the manual dictated and even used some of those strategies they had you practice in college. Why were there still missing pieces for some? You pulled a few students into small groups and kept some after school. Why were their grades not reflecting your hard work? You studied, reviewed, and possibly even cried a bit. On your own. Alone. Isolated. We were all there once. The greatest part of working in a professional learning community is that you are not on your own. You are not alone. You are not isolated. A PLC is an educational team in which every educator is mutually accountable for every student in the building. This took a few years for our school to figure out. It’s not that we didn’t want to; we just didn’t know how to make it happen logistically. We started off sharing students in grade-level teams. Our Title I personnel provided services during each grade level’s WIN (What I Need) time. This worked fine, but the teachers weren’t happy with the still-too-large and notfocused-enough groupings. As a team, we contemplated taking this intervention/enrichment time buildingwide; in doing so, we could potentially

have 42 groups instead of just 8 or 9. As the principal, this scared the tar out of me! So many questions needed to be answered. We definitely knew the “why”—we needed more intensive, targeted interventions, and we needed to offer enrichment opportunities to those who already knew the material. We knew the “when”—we found a block during the morning when every teacher (including specials, counselors, speech personnel, interventionists, etc.) was in the building. We just didn’t know the “how.” Were we really going to allow our fear of how to make this happen stop us from doing the right thing for our students? Not. A. Chance. That next fall, we started baseline testing all our students using benchmark assessments, fluency screeners in reading and math, and several other district assessments. During that first month of school, we reviewed, analyzed, and discussed every student in our building— both strengths and weaknesses. All staff members were involved in this process, including paraprofessionals and specialty teachers. Using literacy as our main focus, we placed those students with the biggest foundational gaps into very small groups with the most intensively trained literacy teachers. We continued to move students into groups using the results of the fall baseline data. All 423 students were placed into some form of intervention or enrichment. After about three weeks of data disaggregation, we were ready. The first morning WIN time came. Students moved to their respective groups, carrying their data notebooks so proudly. Nobody cried or complained—not even the teachers! The first week ended with a building-level meeting. We worked out small kinks, discussed the positives and

negatives, fixed any errors, and started the next week ready to go! I will never forget entering collaboration time after the first month of implementation—there were conversations everywhere . . . about students. The discussions were focused on which students were ready to move groups, who wanted to start a new group focused on a different target, and how much progress had been made in just four short weeks. It was amazing. I absolutely knew right then and there the unwavering power of working as a professional learning community. Listening to the educators talk about how they could already see this change empowering our students (and teachers) to take learning to a new level was when I knew why I love PLCs. No longer on your own. No longer isolated. No longer alone.

MANDY BARRETT is a building principal and Solution Tree associate. She enjoys working with teams to find unique ways to meet the needs of all students. She has over 22 years of experience working as a special education teacher, elementary teacher, and administrator.

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LAST THE STEP RE BEFO G N F LY I

N E9 Z I Fal l 201 G A M A

Discussion Questions Use this convenient tear-out card to go over and reinforce the topics discussed in this issue with the members of your team.

K IN G IS TA P A LEA

A Team’s Journey to Establish PLC Principles in Higher Education (p. 6) 1. What challenges are unique to a PLC in higher education? 2. Reflect on the statement “Prioritizing what students should learn must, out of necessity, follow and not lead the process.” Do you agree or disagree, and why?

3. What lessons can be learned from the PETE team’s journey to becoming a PLC?

Stomping Out PLC Lite (p. 21) 1. What is the difference between PLC at Work and PLC Lite? Which best describes your PLC?

2. What direction and support does your team receive from the district for PLC work? 3. What are your SMART goals and TACA process? Would they meet the expectations set by White River? If not, how can they be improved?

Leading Mathematics Teams Using the Four Critical Questions (p. 28) 1. What is your team’s vision? Is it clear, and do all members understand how to work toward it?

2. How do the four critical questions support the expectations of the vision? 3. What is your team currently doing to meet the vision? What areas can be improved on, and what areas are ready for next steps?

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AllThingsPLC Magazine | Fall 2019

Refresher Course Because everyone needs a reminder now and again.

The 3 Big Ideas of a PLC 1. FOCUS ON LEARNING 2. BUILD A COLLABORATIVE CULTURE 3. FOCUS ON RESULTS

The fundamental purpose of the school is to ensure high levels of learning for all students. This focus on learning translates into four critical questions that drive the daily work of the school. In PLCs, educators demonstrate their commitment to helping all students learn by working collaboratively to address the following critical questions: 1. What do we want students to learn? What should each student know and be able to do as a result of each unit, grade level, and/or course? 2. How will we know if they have learned? Are we monitoring each student’s learning on a timely basis? 3. What will we do if they don’t learn? What systematic process is in place to provide additional time and support for students who are experiencing difficulty?

2 3

4. What will we do if they already know it?

I N F a ll

IS T A AKI LE NG AP

• Schools improve when teachers are given the time and support to work together to clarify essential student learning, develop common assessments for learning, analyze evidence of student learning, and use that evidence to learn from one another.

• PLCs measure their effectiveness on the basis of results rather than intentions. • All programs, policies, and practices are continually assessed on the basis of their impact on student learning. • All staff members receive relevant and timely information on their effectiveness in achieving intended results.

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• No school can help all students achieve at high levels if teachers work in isolation.

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Strategies & Stories to Fuel Your Journey Each issue includes inspiration, fixes, tools, and more. A must-have for emerging and veteran PLCs.

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PLC M A G A Z I N E Fall 2019

THE LAS T STEP BEFORE F LY I N G

“

This magazine helped reinforce the importance of well-functioning PLCs in our district.”

IS TA K IN G A LEAP

—Virginia Bennett, executive director of academic support services, Bulloch County Schools, Georgia

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