Research Report

impacts on students eligible for free or reduced-price lunch. Additional ndings across the three years showed a decrease in students needing to attend summer school, increased student attendance, decreased behavioral referrals, and fewer special education referrals. Most importantly, an increase in student ownership of learning was witnessed as students increased in their desire to redo work and participate in interventions.

2. “All PLC at Work Cohort 1 schools reported positive changes in instructional practices, which led to improved learning opportunities for students” (p. 2).

Within each cohort school, schoolwide systems were created that allowed educators to focus on essential standards; prociency, assessment, and instruction of the standards; alignment of the standards across grade levels; and additional support and feedback through exible student groups and schoolwide systems of interventions. Collectively, these practices contribute to the academic achievements of their students.

3. “Educators in PLC at Work Cohort 1 schools improved their culture of collaboration and collective responsibility for ensuring all students learn at high levels” (p. 2).

Across each school studied, all educators witnessed growth in their communications, trust, collective responsibility, and e cacy for student learning. Team members expressed that their group members were good communicators that could be trusted. is trust level came as a result of their collaborative time with colleagues and administrators who were collectively responsible for ensuring all students learn, not just their own.

4. “All PLC at Work Cohort 1 schools received substantial support from school leaders and Solution Tree associates and were able to fully implement the program” (p. 2).

From the onset of implementation, each school received support to establish the foundational elements of a PLC at Work. Administrators created time for teams to meet weekly and established a guiding coalition of individuals to help fully implement all aspects of the PLC at Work model. Solution Tree associates provided direct support to each school with open lines of communication, di erentiated support to t their unique needs, and hands-on training. In all, schools received over 40 days of training and/or coaching each year so that they were able to implement the PLC at Work model with delity.

Implications for PLCs

In qualitative research, the term saturation is used to indicate that further data collection is unnecessary based on the amount of data previously collected. e study produced by

Education Northwest serves as yet another set of data in an overly saturated pool of evidence to support the merits of PLCs. eir ndings provide a description for how to fully implement the PLCs at Work model. is report does not deviate from what is recorded in the PLC at Work literature. In order to see student gains, schools must ensure the model is fully operational. ere is no element that can be overlooked, nor should any be altered.

Professional Learning Communities at Work are composed of collaborative teams functioning in “both a top-down and bottom-up cyclical process” (Eaker, Keating, Hagadone, & Rhoades, 2021, p. 8). Every employee of the school system is a member of a team that models the same behaviors of e ective high-performing collaborative teams. Within the school board and superintendent team, district leadership team, building leadership team, and teacher teams, the same information should ow. With teacher teams sharing student “learning data, coupled with feedback and need requests” (Eaker et al., 2021, p. 9), administrative teams at all levels should respond to the data and the suggestions of the teachers and administrators to address student needs.

By aligning six critically important assumptions, schools and districts can create high-performing PLCs. In the book

Leading PLCs at Work Districtwide: From Boardroom to Classroom (Eaker et al., 2021), a precise and sequential series of actions is detailed. ese collaborative actions assume:

1. Superintendent leadership matters—a lot!

2. Leaders connect to the why.

3. Clarity precedes competence.

4. Teamwork is aligned within a simultaneous loose and tight culture.

5. Leaders support teams through reciprocal accountability.

6. Leaders monitor and celebrate the work of teams.

Any school considering beginning the PLC at Work process has no reason to ounder. e steps for developing the model are clearly laid out in the PLC literature. Schools have no reason to question whether the process will work in their setting. It will work. e time to begin is now. Get started and get better along the way.

References

Eaker, R., Keating, J., Hagadone, M., & Rhoades, M. (2021). Leading PLCs at Work districtwide: From boardroom to classroom. Bloomington, IN: Solution Tree Press.