SUPERIOR — Educators from Superior High School took a trip to a "world-class" high school last week where the model of the professional learning community was developed.
A professional learning community, commonly called a PLC, is "a team of educators usually grouped together by a common class they teach," said Superior High School Principal Ryan Haroldson.
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The teams of teachers meet regularly to assess teaching strategies and student performance compared to the learning standards required for their courses.
Haroldson said the high school has been using PLCs for a number of years. They meet every Wednesday morning.
"If you were to observe one of our teams, you would see them focused on ensuring every student gets access to a guaranteed curriculum as evidenced by common essential learning standards," Haroldson said. "You would also see teams examining student work together and jointly researching new instructional strategies."
To further develop the PLC model, Haroldson and a half a dozen educators traveled to its birthplace. The model was developed by Rick DuFour, a longtime principal of Adlai E. Stevenson High School in Lincolnshire, Illinois.
Every year Stevenson High School hosts educators from across the country. Visitors spend time with Stevenson administrators, faculty, staff and students learning how the school's policies and procedures support professional learning community.
"This was the best professional development experience I’ve ever been a part of, and I would guess the rest of our team had a similar experience," Haroldson said. "From a philosophical standpoint, Superior High School and Adlai Stevenson High School share a very similar vision: taking collective responsibility for the success and learning of all students."
The schools differ greatly, both in size and demographics. But Haroldson said he noticed in visiting with current Principal Troy Gobble that both schools share challenges such as improving attendance rates.
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"Stevenson has super strong systems for efficiently and immediately responding when students struggle academically or behaviorally," Haroldson said. "They are also 10 years into implementing standards-based grading, and we were super impressed with how they use those grading practices to better leverage student learning."
The second day of the visit was spent in focused conversations about leadership, evidence-based assessment and support for student learning and wellness including social emotional learning and student services.
Haroldson said the team crafted a four-year plan of action that will aim at taking "the culture, learning climate, and systems at Superior High School to the next level."
"Our staff recently developed a new mission and vision for Superior High School, with the goal of becoming a world-class high school," Haroldson said. "I don’t believe we can become world class without visiting world-class high schools to learn how our structures, systems and grading practices need to look to make that a reality, and Adlai Stevenson is a world-class high school. We learned a ton from them and I hope to generate a partnership with them in the future."