PLC stands for Professional Learning Community and to be a PLC will require years of work, dedication and commitment by the staff who work to present the best possible program for your children. The movement towards becoming a PLC school is one that is underway throughout Rio Rancho Schools. Because we are a new school, we anticipate the challenges we will face will be less than might be expected with a long established faculty, but we know it is going to be a multi-year challenge to achieve our goals. One of the biggest obstacles to any faculty becoming a PLC are paradigms, or being willing to change from the way things have always been done in the past. Although we are a new faculty, each of us brings our past experiences to our new assignment. It is the willingness of each staff member to utilize the learning process for him or herself and consider what the research says about more effective ways to help children with their learning that will make us a PLC. In the remainder of this article I will share what being a PLC site will mean to your children.
Perhaps the most immediate impact you will notice is the openness of student performance records and the implementation of the philosophy that no student will be allowed to fail. This does not mean we are moving back to the social promotion environment that existed in public education in earlier periods. It does mean that we recognize that not all students will demonstrate mastery of the required standards after the first instruction-practice-demonstrate cycle. Some students require additional teaching and practice opportunities to reach mastery, which we are going to provide. The remediation activities will occur at school, through extra practice assignments completed at home and any other teaching opportunity we can work into the day. When there are students from several classes demonstrating the need for additional instruction, teachers are forming focus groups where one teacher works with the students from several classes on specific skills. Students who demonstrate mastery on the covered standards will continue with the next set of standards, as will those who need remediation. Those of you who long for the days from the past when the school’s curriculum was focused on the 3R’s should appreciate what this concentration on standards mastery produces, which is a return to the 3R focus until mastery of the basics is achieved.
On a day to day basis, the impact of this approach may be that a child that did not demonstrate mastery may not have his/her science or social studies instruction with his/her peers because this time is being dedicated to remediating in the areas of math or reading. This realignment of the schedule continues only until the child can demonstrate mastery on the tested skills. A similar concentration on the basics of reading occurs for those children involved in the state’s bilingual program, which requires that these children receive a minimum of 45 minutes of additional instruction in reading until mastery is achieved. All students continue to receive the same instruction in PE, music and art as their peers, along with the mandated recess time specified by the state.
Parents can always look on Cordova’s web site to see what standards are being addressed each week and how the students in a particular grade did on the most recent short cycle assessment. We also plan to post the actual assessments, so you can see how your child had to to demonstrate mastery to be identified as passing a particular standard. Anyone who is interested in seeing all the grade level standards can do so by looking at the New Mexico Public Education Department web site.
Coming back to what is different about a PLC, another major difference is how much common planning occurs between the teachers at a particular grade level. While the instruction in each classroom will be as different as the teachers are from one another, they are all working to prepare their children to pass the same set of standards in math and reading at the end of each four and a half weeks of instruction. The student’s performances on the consistently applied assessments are what you can see organized by student ID. Your child’s teacher will tell you how your child scored and if you’re interested, you can go to Cordova’s web site, the short cycle assessment link, and see exactly where your child’s scores fall among all the other students at his grade level. All the students who failed to demonstrate mastery will receive remediation and have another opportunity to demonstrate mastery.
Another major component of a PLC school is the amount of parent involvement that exists in the instructional program. YOU are your child’s first and most important teacher. When the testing we provide identifies a problem or weakness in your child’s ability to demonstrate mastery of a particular standard, you can be a major source of support for your child. When you receive the results of our short cycle assessments, we encourage you to work with your child’s teacher to provide assistance to master the skill and be ready for the next assessment opportunity. We will also be doing all we can at school to facilitate your child’s efforts towards mastery.
What has been shared in this short article barely touches on the many facets of a PLC school. If you would like to learn more, the book Professional Learning Communities at Work by DuFour and Eaker will give you a good understanding of what we hope to achieve. We will include more on PLC in future newsletters. If you have questions, please feel free to call the school and ask for Pat or you can speak with any of the staff about this approach to organizing a school community.
