TO:                  All Staff

FROM:            Tom Watkins, Director

                           Research, Evaluation, and Assessment

                        Steve Schellenberg, Assistant Director

                           Research, Evaluation, and Assessment

RE:                   SOTW:  Implementing High School Level PLCs in SPPS

One of the recommendations by Education Resource Strategies (ERS) (May, 2007) was the implementation of a professional development model that emphasizes Professional Learning Communities (PLCs) with job-embedded school based coaching support. The primary high school staff development effort in SPPS known as Focused Inquiry strongly promotes a PLC model with school based coaching. Focused Inquiry first began during the 2005 school year. This white paper provides an overview of Focused Inquiry/PLC efforts in SPPS high schools up to the end of the 2007 school year. It also provides findings from an internal evaluation study and a proposal for the next phase of PLC implementation.

Based on this evaluation the Office of Academics learned a great deal regarding Professional Learning Communities (PLCs) and coaching support. Below are some key findings and recommendations from the evaluation:

Ø      It is critical that learning communities be organized around a clear model (structure) based on research and theory

Ø      The support and active participation by the building leader(s) was critical.

Ø      There is a continued and growing need for several types of coaching/support.  

Ø      The most successful teams were organized around common formative assessments.

Ø      The “professional learning community model” was not clearly understood across the high school teams, or consistently implemented across schools and teams.

The findings from the larger evaluation study will be used to inform the district as SPPS expands its PLC and coaching efforts this coming year. 

Please click on file below for report.

 Implementing High School Level Report.pdf