Inside PLCs at Work®. Casey Reason

league, he certainly had some of the best basketball skills.

      Casey slowly got closer, trying not to miss a moment of his hero’s warm-up. He noticed that Larry clearly had a very disciplined practice routine. He had a set of shots he took from different angles and different places on the court. Although the crowd hadn’t gathered yet, noises and distractions surrounded him. Larry just continued to shoot and didn’t seem to notice the noises or voices. Casey remembers quite vividly Larry’s dedication in that moment. He was the best shooter on the planet, playing in a town that didn’t even have a professional basketball team. And before what was ostensibly a meaningless game, he remained dedicated to revisiting the fundamentals with a simple routine, making him an even better competitor.

      In recalling that story, we realized that SCSD2 operates an awful lot like Larry Bird in his precious moments of routine. Each and every year, SCSD2 begins by revisiting with great precision what it means to be a PLC. According to an SCSD2 district administrator:

      The process begins early each summer, right after the school year finishes, with principals reflecting on their goals from the previous year. They work together to process and refine their plans for the coming school year. Even though these principals have been doing and leading PLC work for years, we still spend focused time each summer to reflect on and set new targets. (M. Craft, personal communication, June 13, 2018)

      Each school in the district reviews its purpose and evaluates its mission, vision, values, and goals (which we will cover in chapter 2, page 35). Collaborative teacher teams revisit and recommit to their norms and evaluate their intervention strategies, gearing up for new levels of excellence in interpretation and application.

      We began this chapter with a quote from Mike Schmoker (2004): “Clarity precedes competence” (p. 85). This is a sage insight, indeed. People gain momentum when they have great clarity about their exact goals. This applies to leaders as they decide what action to take next. It also applies collectively to teams in a PLC or an entire staff. Schools that make the greatest progress in PLC implementation have clarity about their goals and understand that challenges and opportunities lie ahead.

      In this chapter, we offer a succinct review of what it means to be a PLC and the three big ideas of a PLC. This review will help give you the clarity you need to build and sustain momentum whether you’ve already begun your PLC journey or you are just beginning. Focusing on these fundamentals is important because in far too many schools we’ve worked with, leaders and staff have only a casual understanding of what a PLC is all about. Or, to quote Rick DuFour, they tend to embrace “PLC lite” (DuFour et al., 2016, p. 1). Those schools that engage in PLC lite find themselves picking and choosing the elements of implementation they want to embrace. As a result, they often do not make significant progress because they lack commitment to key elements of implementation.

      To help accomplish this review, we explore PLC concepts in the context of SCSD2’s journey.

What Is a PLC?

      A PLC “is an ongoing process in which educators work collaboratively in recurring cycles of collective inquiry and action research to achieve better results for the students they serve” (DuFour et al., 2016, p. 10). The architects of the PLC process designed this definition with great care and precision. Reflect for a moment on what it means to be a PLC. Every word of the definition relates back to the steps you will take as a practitioner to bring the PLC process to life in your school. As a result, we will break down this definition and offer some specific insights that we know will assist you as we reflect on the experiences of SCSD2’s deep and sustained PLC implementation.

      • “An ongoing process”: Schools that implement the PLC process must commit to a way of doing business, or a process for working in school. This process includes many elements. But to have the most success, schools must embrace the notion that becoming and maintaining a PLC is an ongoing endeavor that focuses on establishing a fluid system with defined tasks and disciplined points of process. As Rick DuFour was known to acknowledge, PLC is not a destination; rather, it is an ongoing journey of transformation.

      • “In which educators work collaboratively”: Being a team member in a PLC requires different work than being a team member in a traditional school. In a PLC, team members commit to collaborating at a high level on a continuous basis. At the heart of a PLC lies the notion that staff who work together are more effective and create better outcomes than staff who work in isolation. Team members in PLCs find that working together feels good; however, they collaborate for much deeper reasons than this. In almost every profession that relies on innovation and intellect, professionals generally agree that staff absolutely must work together in a strategic, collaborative manner to explore the deepest and most impactful innovations (Blanchard, 2003). The most innovative companies and the most successful schools have this in common. They make collaboration a creative, innovation-driving non-negotiable by systematizing collaboration, innovation, and creative problem solving.

      • “In recurring cycles of collective inquiry and action research”: This part of the definition requires members to have ongoing, dynamic conversations in which they collectively ask themselves tough questions, and it requires them to commit to studying results. Educators must shift from the philosophical gamesmanship wherein they argue about what’s best and instead collectively put their money where their mouths are to impact learning, measure results, and share successes and failures with one another. This moves individuals away from thoughtful but unproductive debate and into an arena of continuous performance, evaluation, adjustment, and growth.

      • “To achieve better results for the students they serve”: In a PLC, your best results are never enough. Teams expect that all students will achieve agreed-on results, and as soon as students reach those results, the team agrees on a set of even more challenging goals, articulating the strategies to achieve those goals. This commitment creates truly dynamic schools that constantly grow and innovate.