actively fosters opportunities to extend his work outside Sheridan County. His current focus areas include developing a statewide PLC principal academy, a clinical PLC teacher college, and a PLC framework that can improve education in all Wyoming schools, as well as exploring how to apply artificial intelligence to innovative education practices. Craig’s next transition will move him from K–12 education to social entrepreneurship, where he will look for opportunities to impact student learning across the United States. His pursuits will involve a radical redesign of teacher and principal preparation through public and private partnerships with the goal of transforming K–12 education. Craig’s future work will also explore how artificial intelligence can have a greater impact on students who struggle with reading and mathematics.
Craig received a bachelor’s degree in psychology from Arizona State University and a master of arts in teaching from the University of Alaska Fairbanks. He also completed principal and superintendent endorsement programs at the University of Wyoming and Montana State University.
Visit www.fpcfe.org to learn more about Craig’s work to improve learning for America’s First People.
Casey Reason, PhD, is an expert in leadership, school improvement, virtual learning, and the PLC process. Casey’s mission is to help support sustainable reform in education by using PLCs in conjunction with modern-day applications of technology and emerging brain science. A former urban high school principal and central office administrator, he has worked with school leaders all over the world to improve the academic achievement of the learners they serve.
Casey has published numerous books, and his publications have been endorsed by best-selling authors Ken Blanchard and Charlotte Danielson. In 2015, he coauthored Professional Learning Communities at Work® and Virtual Collaboration with transformational thought leader Richard DuFour.
Casey is also a distance-learning designer and strategist, winning the 2010 Blackboard International Course Designer of the Year award, a recognition featured on Forbes.com. He also works with Solution Tree’s online digital courses and is the developer of the BEST digital leadership solution, a one-of-a-kind leadership and school-improvement digital network serving school leaders from all over the world. He and his twin sons, Brice and Kiah, live in Scottsdale, Arizona.
To learn more about Casey’s work, visit www.caseyreason.com or www.facebook.com/CaseyReasonCompanies, or follow @CaseyReason on Twitter.
To book Craig Dougherty or Casey Reason for professional development, contact [email protected].
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INTRODUCTION A Tour Worth Taking |
When a student struggles in a Sheridan County School District 2 (SCSD2) school, the response might just blow your mind. In one room, a teacher might work one on one with the student through a guided reading framework. At the same time in another room, a group of colleagues—including grade-level team members, specialists, the building’s literacy coach, and the school principal—gather in front of a screen to watch three images of the lesson in progress with full audio. They parse the student’s learning behaviors, as well as the decisions made by the teacher moment to moment. After the lesson, the teacher joins the collaborative group for a frank and intricate discussion of both the student and her teaching. The outcomes of these virtual problem-solving sessions are inspirational, to put it mildly. Each professional leaves the room with targeted strategies on how to advance the student’s learning over the coming weeks. And all of these individuals have learned important lessons and techniques that they can apply to other students they work with on a daily basis.
This brief look into problem solving and student support in SCSD2 begins to paint a picture as to why the district is one of the most celebrated professional learning communities (PLCs) in the world. All the schools in the district have deeply embraced the PLC process as articulated by Richard DuFour and Robert Eaker, architects of the model, and PLC visionary Rebecca DuFour. SCSD2 schools have received many recognitions due to their deep and substantive PLC implementation.
The U.S. Department of Education identifies six SCSD2 schools as National Blue Ribbon Schools (U.S. Department of Education, 2019).
1. Henry A. Coffeen Elementary School
2. Highland Park Elementary School
3. Meadowlark Elementary School
4. Sagebrush Elementary School
5. Woodland Park Elementary School
6. Sheridan Junior High School
SCSD2 has been recognized as a National Model PLC. Six district schools have recieved the distinction of National Model PLC School.
1. Highland Park Elementary School
2. Meadowlark Elementary School
3. Sagebrush Elementary School
4. Woodland Park Elementary School
5. Sheridan Junior High School
6. Sheridan High School
And the National ESEA Distinguished Schools Program recognizes these three as National Distinguished Title I Schools (ESEA Network, n.d.).
1. Sagebrush Elementary School
2. Woodland Park Elementary School
3. Sheridan Junior High School
Additionally, Business Insider identifies SCSD2 as Best School District in Wyoming in 2018 (Loudenbeck, 2018). The district was listed on the College Board AP District Honor Roll in 2017 (one of 433 districts in the United States; College Board, n.d.). Niche.com (2019) identified it as the Number One Best School District in Wyoming in 2017 and 2018, and Number Two Best School District for 2019.
The district achieved the highest Wyoming district aggregate performance on state assessments in reading, mathematics, and science at all grades tested in 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, and 2018 (data come from the Wyoming Department of Education data reporting site; https://edu.wyoming.gov/data).
Sheridan High School has received the following accolades.
• Listed in the 100 Best Public High Schools in the United States (TheBestSchools.org, 2018)
• Awarded the US News & World Report (2019) Best High Schools Silver Award in 2013, 2015, 2016, and 2017
• Identified in the Washington Post (Mathews, 2016, 2017) America’s Most Challenging High Schools in 2016 and 2017
Sheridan High School has also experienced the following distinctions in student achievement.
• National Merit Scholars: Sixty-seven finalists and eighty semifinalists since 2000
• Advanced placement (AP) scholars: Forty-seven scholars, seven with honor, twenty with distinction, and five national in 2018
• ACT district composite averages: Highest in Wyoming (using Wyoming Department of Education data) in 2016 (22.6) and 2018 (21.8), and highest among Wyoming 4A districts in 2017 (21.5)
• We the People Wyoming state champions: 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, and 2018 (Sheridan Media, 2018)
• Wyoming all-state music: Largest number of