Clute Intermediate began our PLC journey in the 2018-2019 school year.  Teacher teams began collaborating to plan assessments and analyze student outcomes in order to plan for interventions.  During this year, growth was shown on state assessments, and achievement gaps began to close in many areas. 

During the summer of 2019, a team of teachers and administrators attended the PLC At Work Institute in San Antonio, Texas.  It was there that the true collaboration began, and we realized that we needed to make changes to our master schedule and our current practices in order to continue to improve student learning outcomes.  We changed the entire master schedule to include a daily school-wide common intervention period.  We aligned collaboration times with grade levels and content areas to embed the collaboration period daily for our teams.  Teacher leaders and administrators collaborated to plan for the beginning of year kick-off.  We collectively revised our campus mission, vision, and belief statements.  Our teams of teachers embraced the “all means all” concept and began sharing students for intervention.  Teacher teams began to identify essential learning outcomes, learning targets, develop formative assessments, and intervene for those who needed extra time and support.  During that year, our campus was shut down in March due to the COVID 19 pandemic.  Our teams continued to work together virtually to locate students and provide instruction, even while quarantined and physically distanced.  Over the summer and at the start of the following school year, our team continued to collaborate to provide our students and families with the support they needed to engage in learning. We began the following year with almost half of our students participating in school virtually, and the other half face-to-face.  Through all of these challenges, our teams of teachers continued to collaborate to meet the needs of our students. 

Our collaborative teams work together to identify essential learning targets and build common formative assessments to drive our intervention and enrichment.  Our campus believes that all students can learn at high levels, and we work collaboratively to provide high quality instruction and interventions to our students every day. Student growth is our priority, and we work together to create a student centered learning environment. Through implementing these best practices with collaboration, instruction, and support, we have seen steady growth in our student outcomes. 

1. Monitoring student learning on a timely basis.

Our campus is a collaborative culture. Our collaborative teams meet often together.  Our core teams have a common collaboration time built into the school day, during contractual hours. This time is set aside for planning and collaboration. We have a running agenda that keeps us focused on the goals.  Our teams decide on roles of the team members at the beginning of the year, and we hold each other accountable to reach our common goals.

At least once a week, there is a designated time set aside for content teams to collaborate together with our campus content specialists, specialized teachers, and other key members of our instructional team to review the data from the classroom common formative assessments.  This data is used to modify instructional practices and to determine which students need additional time and support on the essential learning standards that are assessed. 

Our campus content specialists provide support to teachers by collaboratively building common formative assessments, classroom quick checks, and summative assessments for our core contents.  We use our data collection system to form our groups for intervention, by standard and need.  We share student performance results campus wide and analyze trends with department vertical teams. 

Professional development goals are identified based on the instructional practices and outcomes we are observing in classrooms.  Our campus administrators and content specialists work with the teacher to support in those areas.  We also work to provide the instructional resources that teachers need in order to provide high levels of learning to our student.

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

We have created a systematic process to provide additional time and support for all students.  Our campus services 5th-8th graders, so we are essentially two schools in one building.  We customize our master schedule to address the unique needs of all grade levels.  Our 5th and 6th graders follow a seven period day and our 7th and 8th graders follow an eight period day. 

One of those class periods is called Cougar Time, which is our block of time for school wide extra time and support for all students by all teachers.  We use a master spreadsheet that allows teachers to assign the students by day to their Cougar Time block.  This is a fluid document and is based on needs from their formative assessment data.  This is also a time for extra enrichment and extension in classes, including electives and fine arts.  Students check their Cougar Time schedule before lunch so they know where to go that day, based on their needs. Teachers use this time to provide small group instruction, reteaching, and specific targeted intervention.  Students who do not need extra support that day are assigned to various teachers to work independently, complete projects, read, practice musical instruments, or extend their learning in content areas.  This is also a time for us to provide specific interventions for students who are multiple levels behind and need more intense remediation.  This system ensures that no student misses core, Tier 1 instruction while still maintaining access to Tier 2 for all.  Teaches and paraprofessional staff all work to provide the support needed for all students during the school day.

Our master schedule maximizes learning time.  We have designed the bell schedule to allow for instruction to be at the focus. Monthly, we provide student centered character building lessons during Cougar Time and we use this time to deliver whole school student trainings as needed to support social emotional learning of our students.  We believe strongly in building positive connections to our campus in order to keep our students engaged and involved.

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

Our teachers are leaders and lead the process with their grade level and content.  We believe in shared leadership and know that the teachers are the experts in the content they teach. They are given the freedom to make instructional decisions based on the needs of the students, while at the same time following our curriculum and campus pacing calendars. 

They plan together to make decisions on the delivery of the instruction for the essential standards. These plans are decided on during their collaborative PLC team time and placed in shared drives in order for all to have access and adjust as needed.  We have the expectation that all teachers will clearly identify the learning target and the intended outcome for each lesson, along with the means of assessing the learning.  Learning targets are identified from each unit of study.  These learning targets are used to develop the assessments that are used to drive the instruction and assess the student learning.  

We know that our teachers need each other, and we assign mentor teachers to all new teachers on our campus.  These mentors support daily and work with the new teacher to expand on their instructional skills and support them as they grow as an educator.  Campus administrators work closely with the Guiding Coalition to determine professional development needs and focuses.

Our campus Guiding Coalition is made up of our department leaders, grade level leaders, content specialists, and administrators.  We meet monthly to analyze campus wide data and discuss next steps for our campus.  The Guiding Coalition members are trained in the best practices of Professional Learning Communities, and we all work to monitor the implementation of our campus mission and vision.  We believe that all students can and will be successful, and we prepare them to be future ready.  

Achievement Data Files

• cis-cba-data-8th-grade.xlsx
• algebra-i-boy-21-23.xlsx
• plc-spreadsheet-for-cis-1.xlsx

Additional Achievement Data

These data spreadsheets show points of evidence of the growth that was achieved once our campus implemented the best practices of a Professional Learning Community over a period of time.  

Spreadsheet 1 shows our State Accountability - STAAR proficiency rates for English, Mathematics, Science, and History.  This highlights growth over a four year period with all grade levels. Our English data in 5th-7th for meeting or exceeding showed growth from 2019-22. Our Special Education student group in 5th and 6th grades for meeting or exceeding in English showed significant growth.  Mathematics in 6th-7th grade showed significant growth from 20-22. These points of growth were especially important, as they were experienced during and after the Covid-19 pandemic, showing that our campus continued to use our formative assessments throughout the year to ensure high levels of learning for our students. 

Spreadsheet 2 shows our Campus Based Assessment data for 8th graders from the beginning of the year 2021-22 and 8th graders at our campus in the beginning of year 2022-23. This is the cohort of students who have consistently been a part of the instructional and assessment practices that our team has implemented over the last four years. Growth was shown in almost all areas for English and Mathematics, in all of our student groups, particularly our Special Education, English Language Learners, and Economically Disadvantaged students. 

Spreadsheet 3 shows our Campus Based Assessment Data for 8th graders in Algebra 1 from beginning of year 2021-22 to 8th graders in Algebra 1 at the beginning of year 2022-23.  This shows the growth in all areas of achievement and student groups taking Algebra 1. This data is particularly important because although this is considered an advanced course for our students, we are still showing significant growth overall from year to year in this course. 

 

National Showcase Campus for Capturing Kids' Hearts 

Distinctions for Post Secondary Readiness with Texas Education Agency

Model PLC District - Brazosport ISD

Kindness Certified Campus

Files

• updated-clute-intermediate-23-24-bell-schedule.pdf
• plc-times-22-23--cis.pdf
• cis-unit-plan-template.pdf
• cis-math-common-assessment-calendar.xlsx
• _plc-running-agenda.pdf
• clute-data-collection-tool.pdf
• clute-intermediate-mission_vision_beliefs.pdf