ATPLC Magazine Vol 08 Issue 04 by Solution Tree

PLC things

PLC things all

Volume 8, Issue 4

Features

Leveraging the PLC Framework to Foster Optimal Behavior for All

Blake Clark

How to use the four critical questions as a tool to tackle behavior challenges faced by educators.

Willy Nilly Doesn’t Work Here Anymore Jaime Greene

The Lincoln Heights Middle School story.

Collective Responsibility for Learning Teachers’ Association and District Management

Grace Park, with Janel Keating

Exploring the mutual commitment teachers and leaders must employ to have a thriving PLC at Work.

When It Comes to CFAs “Just the FACTS, Ma’am!”

Chad Dumas

Remember the FACTS to implement effective CFAs in your school.

Tools & Resources

for the Journey Encouragement

Heather K. Dillard

PLC things all MAGAZINE First Thing

SOLUTION TREE:

CEO

Jeffrey C. Jones

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SOLUTION TREE PRESS:

PRESIDENT & PUBLISHER

Douglas M. Rife

ART DIRECTOR

Rian Anderson

PAGE DESIGNERS

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GreatSmoky Mountains National Park, straddling the border of Tennessee and North Carolina, is the most visited national park in the United States (Chen, 2023). As a Tennessean, I have traveled to the Smoky Mountains regularly throughout my lifetime. Most notably is the family fall break trip, which we have taken for the past 27 years and coincidentally mirrors my career in education.

Clingmans Dome, located within the Smoky Mountains, is the highest point in Tennessee. I spent nine years of my career teaching a unit on Tennessee geography, which always included information on Clingmans Dome. I vividly recall helping students memorize its name by drawing a stick man clinging to the top of a mountain. We would record the height of 6,643 feet and compare it to our location in Murfreesboro of 610 feet above sea level. Even though I was near Clingmans Dome every year, I had never made the drive over to see it until fall break 2023.

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My husband, daughter, and I had traveled separately from the rest of the family and had a few hours before they would arrive. Looking for something to do, my husband, Kris, mentioned the possibility of going to Clingmans Dome, but I was hesitant to take nine-year-old Hope. We decided it was the best option for the time we had available and headed toward the 7-mile-long Clingmans Dome Road. is sunny Sunday afternoon drive along the winding and narrow two-lane road was what we termed “an adventure.”

Along our adventure up the mountain, driving behind several other cars, the short drive was extended. I assume our conversations were like those in many of the other cars around us. “Turn o your phone and pay attention to this beautiful scenery.”

“Do you know if this is the right direction?” “Are we there yet? How much longer?” “Are you taking a nap? Wake up and help me.” Had I not been the one driving, I would have said, “Pull over! I am going to be sick!”

Student-Run Help Desks

Battling a shortage of both IT professionals and tech funding, more and more districts are putting students on the rst line of defense for the IT department. By allowing students to provide IT support, troubleshoot, and repair devices, schools are able to save labor costs while giving students the opportunity to gain knowledge and skill—and sometimes even certi cations and college credit. Best practices for starting student-run help desks include trusting the students to do the work, teaching professionalism, and looking to the industry for guidance.

Read more: “Schools Give Students a Career Head Start with Help Desk Opportunities,” by Tara E. Buck. EdTech. https://rb.gy/698lxj

Personal Finance Requirement

ere are now 26 states that require a personal nance course for high school graduation, up from eight in 2020. California is the latest to add thenancial literacy requirement, expecting

high schools to o er a semester-long or full-year course by the 2027–28 school year. “A 2014 study published by the Federal Reserve found students who had a nancial education requirement had higher relative credit scores and lower relative delinquency rates than those in states without such a requirement.”

Read more: “26 States Now Require Personal Finance Course for Graduation” by Naaz Modan. K–12 Dive. https:// rb.gy/2yg9mi

The Microschools Movement

Microschools are, by de nition, small and are touted to provide the advantages of both homeschooling and traditional schools. Speci cally, microschools are able to provide personalization with small student-to-teacher ratios, individualized learning plans, and trained educators. However, there are, of course, tradeo s. With small class sizes, students likely will not have the same social opportunities as are available in larger schools. Nor do microschools have as many opportunities for extracurricular activities. Academically speaking, microschool students do not have access to the number of

specialized educators as do those in traditional schools.

Read more: “ e Coming Rise of Microschooling: Where Old Economics Meets the New Schooling Market,” by Douglas N. Harris. Brookings Institute. https:// rb.gy/jvkaif

What It’s Like to Be a Teacher in America

e Pew Research Center has released a report answering the question: What’s it like to be a teacher in America today? Based on a survey of over 2,500 US public K–12 teachers, the ndings are categorized into the following aspects of teachers’ experiences: job satisfaction, how educators manage their workloads, problems students are facing, challenges in the classroom, views of parental involvement, and views on the state of public education.

Read more: “What’s It Like to Be a Teacher in America Today?” by Luona Lin, Kim Parker, and Juliana Menasce Horowitz. Pew Research Center. https://rb.gy/ xrnccd

RESPONSIBILITY FOR LEARNING COLLECTIVE

Teachers’ Association and District Management

Grace Park with Janel Keating

In2008, the Chino Valley Uniﬁed School District (CVUSD) pioneered the adjustment of the instructional week to build in time for teacher teams to collaborate around student learning. Following the unprecedented bold move for any public school district, a contract with Solution Tree was established to inspire and build the capacity of our school teams to work collectively through the Professional Learning Community at Work

model to promote higher levels of learning for all students. Led through the district initiative, our PLC journey got started with all 35 schools bringing their guiding coalitions together to learn how collaborative teams could rally around the right work to improve student learning outcomes. With a great prevailing sense of hope and excitement and the ﬁrst edition of Learning by Doing on hand, all teams were committed to the vision of learning for all.

However, as quickly as the teams were fired up, the rampant flames fizzled because they were left alone to figure out how to continue to effectively engage in collaborative teaming. e well-intentioned drive-by training and complete school autonomy to move this important work along did truly little to have “a pervasive impact and ongoing impact on the structure of the school(s)” (DuFour et al., 2016, p. 10).

At the Breaking Point

Fast-forward. Our journey picks up again in 2017. e teachers’ association clamored around me, in my position as associate superintendent of curriculum and instruction, and the deputy superintendent with their request to abandon PLC at Work. e built-in weekly time for team collaboration became a time and term not embraced by staﬀ. Teams were being asked to collaborate, and I believe they were doing everything they knew how to do, yet they did not see the value and the promise of collaborative teams.

Some schools tried hard to use the four critical questions of a PLC to work through collaboration; other schools used this dedicated time for administrative staﬀ meetings, extended lunch periods for staﬀ, baby showers, or lesson planning. With the consistently inconsistent practice of applying and focusing on the what or the how of professional learning communities, we failed to create the buy-in and continued excitement with

staﬀ. As a result, it was not surprising that our teachers were asking to use this built-in time intended for collaboration for individual preparation. e last thing teachers need in their limited amount of time during the day is to feel their time has been wasted.

Hearing these real concerns expressed by our teachers, the board of education requested that we allow our teacher teams to use at least one of their built-in collaboration days during the month for individual preparation time. So we allowed teams the autonomy to decide how that time would be used for the remaining part of the school year. We knew we were at a breaking point. While focusing on the what and the how of PLCs, we failed to build a collective understanding of the why behind this work and did not provide much district support. No wonder when the going got rough—with our inconsistent practices across the district and the arrival of the Common Core standards and 21st-century learning—educators wanted to abandon team collaboration because it was not a valuable use of their time.

A Commitment to Rejuvenation

With an urgency to calibrate our understanding of PLCs and rejuvenate our ﬁre for what we could do to elevate student achievement, district management and the teacher association leadership attended a PLC summit in Iowa to build a shared

understanding of professional learning communities. It was there that we agreed that the PLC at Work model was what we needed if we wanted to recommit to elevating learning outcomes for every student. We agreed that it was our fundamental responsibility to actualize this purpose and it was within our control to help all students learn at higher levels. We understood the why behind this important work. It was also in Iowa that we met Janel Keating, who would eventually become instrumental in guiding us along the PLC journey.

After three inspirational days at the Solution Tree PLC Summit, we returned home to California to actualize our commitments into a reality for the 29,000 in CVUSD. District management and the teachers’ association leaders set aside time to plan our PLC improvement journey together. With our recommitment to PLCs, we focused on “mov[ing] from an interest in the PLC process to a commitment to the process where there are no excuses for failing to move forward” (DuFour et al., 2016, p. 7).

Our first commitment to the rejuvenation of the PLC journey was to establish a districtwide effort with the teachers’ association as partners in driving this work. We jump-started this journey by investing in all our staff with the goal of being able to meaningfully engage in collaborative teams to advance the three big ideas that drive a PLC: a focus on learning, collaborative culture and collective responsibility, and a focus on results. In 2018, all 1,500 teachers and 35 guiding coalitions participated in training with Solution Tree to build their capacity to participate and grow in a professional learning community. With guidance from and collaboration with Janel Keating, we have grown our capacity as leaders within a systemwide adherence to learning by doing Every school site has added five members to its guiding coalition to help lead the collective responsibility for student learning. Consider the value one principal has shared regarding the school’s guiding coalition:

The professional learning community guiding coalition, partnered with the instructional leadership team, supports the vital work grade levels must do to ensure grade-level teams collaborate to set goals, share best practices, monitor student learning, and strategically plan interventions and extensions to meet the needs of every student. Growing our teams has benefited our school because we have at least one member of each grade level who understands the PLC framework to help consistently reframe our focus on learning as part of our routine practice. When our teachers participate in “PLC Right,” our students demonstrate growth and build confidence in themselves as they set goals and reflect on their own progress. Our teachers also share their excitement about their development in instructional practices and their impact on student learning as we are not lone islands teaching in isolation. (B. Bearden, personal communication, March 16, 2024)

A Guaranteed and Viable Curriculum

In rebuilding staff capacity to implement a cycle of inquiry around effective PLC practices, the district led the collaborative work with direction and support to establish a guaranteed and viable curriculum for all schools. is process began by asking teams at all 35 schools to provide feedback on the 10–12 standards they deemed essential for each grade and course. After collecting the feedback, cross-district grade-level teams of teachers and instructional coaches analyzed the identified standards through a validation process to evaluate relevance, endurance, assessment value, and leverage (REAL). rough an accordion format for collaboration, school teams had an opportunity to provide additional feedback until the cross-district grade-level teams felt confident they had arrived at 10–12 essential standards in each grade level and course to establish our guaranteed and viable curriculum. While the work and feedback were extensive, the process for input would create greater ownership by all teams.

Essential Standards Assessments

e next important part of this process was to have a common method as one indicator for checking on student learning

around these essentials districtwide. After all, now that we had determined what we would guarantee for all students, despite the classroom or school students were in, would it not be a great idea to check on these? With cross-district grade-level teams again, districtwide formative essential standards assessments (ESAs) were created and would be administered three times a year.

Not everyone immediately embraced these assessments with excitement. It was not uncommon to ﬁeld questions from board members, emails from teachers, or questions at meetings or during professional development on the validity and the purpose of the ESAs. e range of questions was real and varied, from why we were “testing kids to death” to why we would take up instructional time to administer assessments that were not valuable. As a result, multiple layers of communication were threaded in consistently and often as routine practice by emailing communications to staﬀ, starting with the why at every professional development session, answering questions even before they were asked, and most importantly, being transparent with sharing data and the progress of student achievement with every committee that touched teaching and learning.

It has been a short four years since the ﬁrst administration of ESAs in 2019–20. Our new narrative among teams is how

individual teams can continue to reﬁne or create more common formative assessments of the quality of the ESAs to check on student learning between the district-developed quarterly assessments.

A Priority of Top Leadership

While the impetus of the rejuvenation began to salvage the promise of a PLC, the real impact for sustaining continuous improvement for student and adult learning has been possible because it has been a priority for the school board and the superintendent team (Eaker et al., 2021). As a priority of top leadership, we have been able to allocate resources and align and scale our work districtwide to ensure a vision of learning for all as a guaranteed promise to our students! And most importantly, because leadership matters, we have been able to shield our teaching and learning eﬀorts from competing priorities and put all our energy and eﬀorts into districtwide school improvement through the PLC at Work model.

CVUSD superintendent Dr. Norm Enfield describes the work within the district: “ e practice of a system means a mechanical routine, doing the same thing over and over again; that is what a system implies. Chino Valley Unified School District’s PLC work is a district systemwide initiative that aligns specific PLC work to reduce barriers for teachers so they can collaborate on student learning and instruction.” Enfield participates in every PLC training with the district teaching and learning team. He reinforces the same message at each training session: in Chino Valley, we teach, assess, and provide additional time and support to grade-level essential standards.

Collaboration with the Teachers’ Association

Equally important in sustaining improvement has been our commitment to the teachers’ association leadership to work together to support teacher and school success and thus student success. As a result, we have been able to talk through issues and work through growing pains that naturally occur in a cycle of improvement.

An African proverb stating that “if you want to go fast, go alone, but if you want to go far, go together” underpins the importance of shared commitments that are understood and embraced by teams versus individuals working in isolation. Learning from the well-intentioned plans from 2008 when individual schools were left to ﬁgure out and plan their journey, in 2018, we embraced the collaborative culture and collective responsibility to guide the school improvement process as a district to go further together this time.

Aligning and scaling the districtwide improvement process for all schools has been through a top-down, bottom-up

JASON ANDREWS a leader among leaders

ason A. Andrews, EdD, was appointed superintendent of Windsor Central School District in 2005 and was the 2019 New York State Superintendent of the Year. Previously, he served as a high school teacher, coach, cocurricular adviser, and middle school principal.

In his current role, he focuses on systemic implementation of professional learning communities as the vehicle to ensure student learning and a culture of continuous improvement. He is also the co-director of State University of New York (SUNY) Oswego’s Superintendent’s Development Program. Andrews also serves on Community College Board of Trustees.

Andrews is a leader among superintendents and currently serves as president of the New York State (NYS) Council of School Superintendents and serves Commissioner’s Advisory Council and the National Center for Educational Research and Technology National Board. In addition, he facilitates board of education strategic planning sessions and retreats across New York state for the NYS School Boards Association. He served on the board of education for the Harpursville Central School District from 1993 to 2000. He also serves on numerous community boards and committees, with a particular emphasis on issues related to workforce development and poverty.

Andrews received a bachelor’s degree in political science and secondary social studies from SUNY Cortland, a master’s degree in education from the University of New England, a certi cate of advanced studies in educational administration from SUNY Cortland, and a doctorate in educational leadership at Sage Graduate School in Albany, New York.

Whew! Andrews is one charitable and busy guy. Luckily, he is also very generous and took time out of his schedule to talk with us.

When It Comes In education, we love our acronyms.

We’ve got our IEPs and BMPs, all put into the SRS system, which is di erent from the SIS program. And of course, our LTs are identi ed by our REAL process so we can KISS some CFAs. is is all part of PLCs, where . . .

Are you lost?

Despite the dizzying array of acronyms in our world, we also know that the brain loves a good summary. And acronyms are a powerful tool in helping the brain summarize key points.

In my work with schools attempting to implement common formative assessments (CFAs), I have found that there is considerable variation in what schools consider to be a CFA. So after examining the great works of Kim Bailey and Chris Jakicic (2023) and Nicole Dimich (2015), together with onthe-ground experience with teams of teachers, I developed an acronym to summarize the criteria for a quality CFA: the FACTS.

CFAs: The LYnchpin to Improved Instruction

But before getting to that acronym, let’s clarify the role of CFAs in our space. To steal and modify a phrase from my childhood: feedback is the breakfast of champions. is feedback is critical not just for students but for teachers as well. In order for us, as the adults in schools, to get better at our craft, we need feedback.

Enter the role of CFAs. Common formative assessments provide feedback to both students and teachers. If feedback is the breakfast of champions, CFAs are breakfast, lunch, and dinner all rolled into one! When done well, they are magical in that they provide both students and sta with just-in-time feedback on learning and then become the drivers for improved practice and learning (see DuFour et al., 2016, pp. 143–144, for an excellent summary on the research around these practices).

Unfortunately, not all CFAs are done well.

So what are the critical aspects of a CFA that distinguish between those that are well done, providing a healthy dose of feedback, and those that are less well done and end up simply checking a box for compliance?

Comes to CFAs “Just the FACTS, Ma’am!”

By Chad Dumas

Just the FACTS, Ma’am

At the risk of adding another acronym to our already-laden eld, consider the following criteria when thinking about your CFA: the FACTS.

Frequent Aligned Common

Team-designed Short

Let’s take each of these in order.

Frequent

CFAs that are impactful are frequent, meaning that we are not waiting any more than two to three weeks before having one, and sometimes we give one as frequently as weekly. ere is no hard-and-fast rule about how often to give a CFA other than this: give them only as often as you can respond to them. A CFA that doesn’t lead to action is a wasted CFA. Wasted time for you to create, wasted time for students to take, wasted time for you to score. Just a bunch of wasted time. Yet, those CFAs need to be frequent enough to give both you and students feedback on instruction and learning.

Aligned

Aligned CFAs have two elements of alignment to them. First, they are targeted to what you want students to learn. is means that they are skillfully targeted at only that which the team considers as essential. Nice-to-know content has no business on a CFA. at would not be aligned. Second, the kind of evidence the CFA is gathering matches the type of target being assessed. As an example, if we are asking students to perform something, then the CFA would not be multiple-choice, and vice versa. Alignment means that (1) the content is truly essential and (2) the item type aligns with the kind of target being assessed.

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

Words Matter

WHAT DOES SCHOOL CULTURE MEAN?

e culture of a school is found in the assumptions, beliefs, expectations, and habits that constitute the norm for the people within that school. e culture of a school can be based on teacher collaboration or isolation; it can be student centered or teacher centered, based on high expectations or low expectations, involve a growth mindset or a xed mindset, or embody collective self-e cacy or fatalism.

e culture is typically unexamined and simply re ects “the way we do things around here.” Reculturing requires bringing unexamined attitudes, beliefs, and habits to the surface for analysis and discussion.

e culture of a PLC is always simultaneously loose and tight.

MATTER HOW GOOD anideamightsound, practitionerswanttoknow,“Yes,butdoesitwork? Canitpositivelyaffectmyclassroom,myinstructional practice?”Teachersandprincipalsoftencollect storiesfromotherschools,butscholarlyresearch alsocontributestounderstandingwhatmakesPLCs effective. Thiscolumnwillintroduceyoubrieflyto contemporaryresearchaboutPLCsinpractice.Share thissynopsiswithcolleaguesandpolicymakerswho wonder how to make PLCs work more effectively,and digdeepertolearnmoreonyourown.

SINGLETON SUCCESS STORIES IN PLCS AT WORK

Heather K. Dillard

The Study

Mariani-Petroze, C. (2023). e positive impacts of a professional learning community model on student achievement in small schools. Journal of Catholic Education, 26(2), 23–49. http://doi.org/10.15365/joce.2602022023

Discouragement occurred for one school leadership team after attending monthly professional development sessions on the PLC process. Nothing they had learned applied to their small-school setting. Refusing to give up, the team attended additional trainings that focused on the development of PLCs for singletons and small schools. is research article details the student growth they witnessed in their rst year of PLC implementation.

A Catholic school in Kentucky sought to utilize the PLC process to help their 118 kindergarten through eighth-grade students. With only one teacher per grade level, they struggled to have meaningful collaborative meetings. Utilizing the vertical collaboration model outlined in Aaron Hansen’s (2015) book How to Develop PLCs for Singletons and Small Schools, they focused their attention on raising their scores on the Northwest Evaluation Association’s Measure of Academic Process (MAP), which was administered in the fall, winter, and spring. is data would be compared to the 2019–20 data they had collected when the school rst began implementing this assessment.

In addition to the MAP data, the principal collected surveys at four di erent times throughout the 2020–21 school year from the 10 teachers in the study. e principal sought answers to one research question: Would the implementation of the vertical professional learning community model positively impact student achievement and professional practice in a small-school setting? e sta received initial training on the PLC process during the fall 2020 semester. ree vertical teams were established (grades K–1, 2–4, and 5–8) to meet for 30 minutes each week during the school day and for one 45-minute monthly meeting after school. e agendas were established based on Hansen’s model.

Research Report

Once data were collected in fall 2020, the teachers began to “identify areas of instructional gaps and skill de cits to determine a set of skills to target” (p. 31). is was used “to make immediate instructional adjustments” and “allowed teachers to make data-driven instructional decisions and implement formative assessments in an attempt to improve in the identi ed skill areas” (p. 31).

From the start, the principal was transparent with the faculty as she shared curriculum alignment goals and her plans to use student achievement data via MAP. She recognized this as the “ rst step in creating a culture of continuous improvement using data to inform classroom instruction” (p. 29). e initial teacher survey data indicated a “great need to align the curriculum and improve instruction that would truly bene t the students” (p. 29). With teachers willing to buy into the PLC at Work process, the school began to see immediate gains.

The Findings

e article details the individual gains across the di erent testing cycles throughout the year. To summarize, the MAP data revealed that all grade levels experienced growth in both math and reading. In math, the rst-grade students met their benchmark scores while second through seventh grades exceeded it by at least ve points and eighth grade exceeded the benchmark by 11 points. In reading, rst graders had the most improvement as they exceeded the benchmark by 15 points and all other grade levels exceeded it by seven to 10 points.

Introductory survey data revealed most teachers had some experience with PLCs in larger schools. ey shared concerns for the format in the small-school setting and their potential to be productive. By the end of the year, the teachers speci ed high levels of engagement in their collaborative meetings. eir comfortability with the work, collaboration, and clarity of the PLC tasks had increased as they progressed throughout the year.

Implications for PLCs

Singleton teachers should not receive a pass from collaboration simply because implementing the PLC at Work process is more intuitive in larger schools than in smaller schools. ere is too much evidence in support of collaboration to allow teacher isolation to persist. Unfortunately, educators often misinterpret “congeniality, cooperation, and their willingness to work together as collaboration” (Leane & Yost, 2022, p. 9). When “teams come together, but practices don’t change as a result of their collaboration, they are participating in collaboration lite” (Leane & Yost, 2022, p. 10).

Often collaboration lite persists because administrators are unsure how to proceed with their singleton teachers. In their book Singletons in a PLC at Work, authors Brig Leane and Jon Yost (2022) describe three methods for singleton teachers to maintain meaningful collaboration. Course-alike collaboration is described as the most e ective method for utilizing the four critical PLC questions:

1. What do we want students to learn?

2. How will we know if they have learned?

3. What will we do if they haven’t learned?

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

Additionally, the authors describe how collaboration among common-content teachers and critical friends can meaningfully address the needs of students.

Classroom teachers create meaningful collaborative groupings for all the students they serve. ey do not leave one student out because that student’s needs are di erent. is concept holds true for each teacher. Administrators should nd appropriate collaborative partners for every teacher in their building, including their singleton teachers. With technological advances through virtual means and additional literature explaining how to be successful, there is no excuse for teachers to be left alone to work in isolation.

References

Hansen, A. (2015). How to develop PLCs for singletons and small schools. Bloomington, IN: Solution Tree Press. Leane, B., & Yost, J. (2022). Singletons in a PLC at Work: Navigating on-ramps to meaningful collaboration Bloomington, IN: Solution Tree Press.

Heather K. Dillard at Middle Tennessee State University, teaches the Schools as Professional Learning Communities course in the Assessment, Learning, and School Improvement Doctoral Program.

Why I Love PLCs

From Packets to Research-Based Interactive Instruction

It’s one thing to read about PLCs but a completely di erent experience when you live the work. I have had the honor of leading PLC work for the past 12 years at Robertson High School in Fremont, California. is work has been transformative for me as a professional, as well as for the Robertson High School community. I cannot imagine doing the work any other way, and each year, I am amazed by the rich culture and strong relationships we build through this process that ultimately provides the best learning environment for all our students.

Before 2008, Robertson High School (like so many other continuation high schools) was a dumping ground for marginalized students who were not successful at the comprehensive high school. e instructional program was packet-based, with no teacher collaboration, no meaningful planning or feedback to students, and an adult-focused culture. ere was a need to transform the school’s culture, philosophy, and structure.

e changes at our school began with a shift in philosophy. e three big ideas of a PLC produced the road map that drove our work. Our sta created a clear vision that included high expectations for both students and sta , built on the mission that all students will learn at high levels. Instruction moved away from packets to research-based direct interactive instruction, and teachers used collaborative time to build backward-designed units that had measurable learning outcomes. e sta used data collected from learning outcomes to drive meaningful discussions that ultimately led us to develop appropriate interventions and enrichments.

Sta recognized that no single teacher can meet the needs of all students; therefore, they needed to collaborate and be vulnerable with each in order to build capacity to cultivate the needs of the whole student. Sta began to embrace this philosophy and take collective responsibility for better student learning outcomes.

In order to do this work, sta focused on building stronger relationships with each other and the students. Conversations in the hallway, in collaborative meetings, and in the sta room quickly changed. Our sta became a family, and working through adversity and celebrating success became a norm. Our culture started to quickly change and become student centered and data driven. Our values were developed into essential behaviors—respect, relationships, accountability, commitment, and empathy—which became the foundation of our school. ese essential behaviors are our collective commitments to our students and each other. As a result, I started to see teachers looking “into the mirror, rather than out the window,” as Ken Williams often says. at’s when I realized we had transformed into a true professional learning community.

PLCs at Robertson High School have created a structure that organized sta to be intentional and re ective of our practices. Because of this work, Robertson High School has been recognized as a California Model Continuation High School since 2013. Robertson High School has also been recognized as a Solution Tree Model PLC at Work school since 2018. We are the only continuation high school in the United States to earn such a distinction.

Why

BY SAL HERRERA

do I love PLCs?

“I am here today not only as a graduate but as an example. I am an example of the transformative impact a school dedicated to our success has. Robertson provides a devoted and compassionate academic environment for students to thrive, and I am a testament to that!”

—Janna, 2020

“Robertson High School staff was more like a family to me, and they were the biggest help. Robertson has helped me realize the importance of good grades and education. This school does great things for students who desperately need help like me. When I graduate, it will be sad but I’m proud to say that thanks to RHS, I made it out.”

—Beatriz, 2025

is is why we do what we do at Robertson High School. e PLC journey is not a race. It starts with a vision, where relationships, commitment, and perseverance are the core for creating a collaborative culture that focuses on student learning and results. is is a process, and your sta will endure many challenges and unforeseen obstacles along this path. Be patient and be strong!

principal

Robertson High School, located in the Fremont Uni ed School District in Fremont, California. He also serves as a Solution Tree PLC at Work and Priority Schools associate.

SAL HERRERA is the

Schools and districts from across the globe are transforming their classrooms with the PLC at Work® process, a powerful strategy for sustained, substantive school improvement.

• BUILD collective capacity for continuous

• CREATE clarity of purpose, common vision, and collective commitments

•

for all