Module 5: District PLCs - Introduction
Introduction
There has been an increasingly significant body of research that tells us that if we really want to improve teaching and learning through Professional Learning Communities, that community has to be well established throughout the district. This means not only the way we change the collaborative structures at the school level, but also rethinking how decisions are made, and by whom, at the district administrative level. The key purpose of supporting this two year Massachusetts ESE pilot on PLCs was to see if districts in our state would be willing to rethink the way they do business. What we have learned over the two years with 20 districts is that they are.
This PLC implementation guide actually ends where it should start. All of the work that is happening in schools and teams should be happening at the district level as well. In fact, it might be even more effective to start your district PLC work first. One thing we have discovered is that if PLCs aren’t happening comprehensively and collaboratively from top down and bottom up, it is too often doomed to failure in the long run, as it rarely becomes the embedded culture that survives personnel changes.
Module 5 brings our work full circle in introducing the work of District Administration in thinking about a profound change in practice that supports, sustains and embraces the concept of Professional Learning Community as synonymous with district-wide collaboration. Module 5 offers words from administrators who share their own stories about the journey towards PLC.
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There has been an increasingly significant body of research that tells us that if we really want to improve teaching and learning through Professional Learning Communities, that community has to be well established throughout the district. This means not only the way we change the collaborative structures at the school level, but also rethinking how decisions are made, and by whom, at the district administrative level. The key purpose of supporting this two year Massachusetts ESE pilot on PLCs was to see if districts in our state would be willing to rethink the way they do business. What we have learned over the two years with 20 districts is that they are.
This PLC implementation guide actually ends where it should start. All of the work that is happening in schools and teams should be happening at the district level as well. In fact, it might be even more effective to start your district PLC work first. One thing we have discovered is that if PLCs aren’t happening comprehensively and collaboratively from top down and bottom up, it is too often doomed to failure in the long run, as it rarely becomes the embedded culture that survives personnel changes.
Module 5 brings our work full circle in introducing the work of District Administration in thinking about a profound change in practice that supports, sustains and embraces the concept of Professional Learning Community as synonymous with district-wide collaboration. Module 5 offers words from administrators who share their own stories about the journey towards PLC.
>Back to Table of Contents