We began laying the foundation for our PLC work 5 years ago, in the 2011-2012 school year.  We had the conversations, and opened up the dialogue within our school on the philosophy behind PLC's.  In the 2012 school year, we began to create common plans for departments to begin working as a PLC group.  SMART goals were set, pacing guides produced aligned to the standards, and, at this point, PLC meetings twice a month.  Meetings the following year were made weekly.  This allowed PLC's to frequently assess data from common assessments, collaborate on assessments, align assessments to the standards as well as the "next test", remediation/enrichment work, as well as intervention strategies for those not yet proficient in the competencies.  

After successful outcomes in the first couple of years of PLC work, we have recently been focused school wide on increasing the rigor by collaborating and scaffolding assessments to better address the DOK level of the standards.  This work is ongoing.  The collaboration has led to unprecedented success, and better collaboration amongst colleagues to impove teacher/student success.

1. Monitoring student learning on a timely basis.

PLC's meet on a weekly basis.  Within departments/subjects, we have common plans to meet during our plan time once per week.  Other PLC's set up weekly meetings for before or after school.  These weekly meetings provide PLC's an opportunity to create common assessments that are aligned to the standards, review formative and summative assessment data to identify learning shortfalls, and to collaborate on engagement strategies that are being used effectively.  We get the opportunity to discuss openly what are successes and struggles have been, and to learn from one another to better impact student learning.  We also collaborate on remediation/reteaching strategies to help those students who still have yet to grasp the standards at the level needed for success.   

2. Creating systems of intervention to provide students with additional time and support for learning.

Our school has a built in period every other day (block scheduling) that is designed as a remediation/enrichment block.  Students will report to homeroom for a brief 10 minutes, but then the rest of the block is split into an "A" section, and a "B" section.  Students struggling in core classes are assigned to a remediation period during this time with a teacher within that department.  During this time, students get the opportunity to focus their time on the standards/competencies that they are struggling with, complete remediation work as assigned by the classroom instructor, and or complete assignments.  Teachers work together to make sure this time is used to reinforce learning.  Those students who are doing well in their classes, will be assigned and enrichment period, where they can delve deeper into the subject matter.  Within our department, we also identify based on summative data, those individuals not achieving at a 70% or higher on the unit standards.  Those individuals will be given remediation work to be done in class, or during remediation block.

3. Building teacher capacity to work as members of high performing collaborative teams that focus efforts on improved learning for all students.

The work of the PLC's only work if there is honest collaboration between participants.  The creation of our PLC "norms" was important for us in creating a team that could work together.  With these norms agreed on and put in place, it provided structure to our PLC team to be more effective in our collaboration.  Additionally, each member of the PLC is assigned a task/job (leader, time-keeper, norm-monitor, secretary, etc...).  This provides a sense of ownership to the members as each member has a role.  Within our PLC, we find it very important to have a meeting agenda to follow as well, this keeps us focused and on task.  Because we give multiple, frequent formative assessments, the agenda will almost always have data to share and discuss to better gauge and improve student learning.

Additional Achievement Data

Graduation Rate  Central Corporation State 15/16 94.3 79 89.1 14/15 92.4 77.4 88.9 13/14 92.7 81.7 90 12/13 88.4 81.9 88.6 11/12 80.9 82.8 88.7         ISTEP+10 - ELA % passing Central Corporation State 16/17 62.4 56 60.5 15/16 60.5 56 59           ISTEP+10 - Math % passing Central Corporation State 16/17 28.4 26.7 36.8 15/16 24.5 26.1 34.6   ISTEP+10 - Science % Passing Central Corporation State 16/17 65.1 55.2 57 15/16 87.5 60.5 58.8
English ECA % Passing Central Corporation State 2012/13 69 67 76 2013/14 74 71 78 2014/15 82 71 79 Biology ECA % Passing Central Corporation State 2011/12 25 21 46 2012/13 58 41 48 2013/14/15 63/63 45/38 49/44 Algebra ECA % Passing Central Corporation State 2012/13 62 58 69 2013/14 68 66 73 2014/15 82 76 70

 

We are currently an A rated school in the State of Indiana.  We also received a Bronze rating from US News and World Report in the 2017-2018 school year.  We have been awarded an A school status by the state of Indiana for 3 of the past 4 years.  Individuals within our school have been recognized as well for their work - Principal of the Year (2014/2015) and Teacher of the Year (2016/2017, 2015/2016).