The birth of the PLC process for New Glarus Middle School was during the 2013-2014 school year.  That year the administrative team was a mixture of a new district administrator, a recently new to-the-district principal, two veteran principals, and a student services director who had all been in the district for many years.  The team decided to begin building common knowledge about PLCs and read the book, Professional Learning Communities at Work as a team book study.  This reading prompted the discussion about high expectations of learning for all students.  The following summer, the team of five New Glarus School District administrators traveled to Lincolnshire, Illinois to attend the district’s first Solution Tree PLC at Work Institute.  We were inspired and determined to create a system where collaboration would create great results for all students.

The journey with the middle school staff began in the 2014-2015 school year.  The middle school had only been in existence as a 5th-8th grade building for two years at this time and the principal was in his second year as the middle school principal.  The middle school had been forged from two grade levels from the secondary building, 7th and 8th grade, and two grade levels from the elementary building, 5th and 6th grade.  The two sets of staff members had not worked together previously, and we needed to build systems and procedures for how to work together. Building a collaborative and cohesive staff was a priority for the middle school culture. The introduction of the PLC Institute was at just the right time, and the first step was creating a leadership team or a guiding coalition for the middle school.  Because of space issues in the middle school, the 5th-grade team was moved back to the elementary building in the fall of 2018, and the staff alignment was once again adjusted for grades sixth through eighth.

One of the first steps of the guiding coalition was to ensure that all stakeholders of the middle school felt like they belonged.  A focus was placed on building connections between staff and students.  As teachers and administrators worked together, a need for a deeper understanding of the PLC process became evident.  The next step was to take a team of teachers to the PLC Institute.  Over the course of the next several years, teams of middle school teachers began attending summer institutes and learning about the four critical questions and the need for a strong universal plan for Tier One instruction.  The vision for the middle school was that the PLC process was going to be ‘just the way we do business’ and the mission was focused on all students learning at high levels of achievement and feeling like they belonged and to “Be the Best Knight You Can Be!”. The guiding coalition worked to develop middle school team norms to provide high expectations for adult behavior and learning as well as student achievement. They created the NGMS Teaming Norms document.  In addition to the team norming document, the guiding coalition has created a visual for the middle school’s core beliefs.  These two documents have remained a driving purpose for the middle school to create a model school.  

Structuring a schedule was difficult with shared staff between two other buildings.  Finding time for Tier Two interventions and reteaching when students were not meeting expectations was a challenge.  However, the middle school team stayed committed and focused on carving out time to collaborate and help all students achieve.  The district also recognized the need for additional PLC support and brought Anthony Muhammed, Cassie Erkins, and Mike Mattos to meet with the adults in our school.  With Anthony, it became crystal clear our need to focus on student learning, not just teacher instruction.  The shift from teaching to learning was an important step in the middle school journey.  Cassie Erkins followed up with the importance of learning targets, common formative assessments, and using the data to make decisions about what the next steps would be for student learning.  Finally, Mike provided ongoing professional development focused on the collaborative work of teams and the four critical questions.  A representative from each of the middle school grade levels and the special education department also attended a RtI at Work Institute to further the work of Tier Two and Tier Three interventions. 

Since the pandemic, the middle school has undergone a couple of more changes.  First, there was a change in the schedule to better align with the shared high school staff schedule, and second, there was a change in administration.  Because the administration change was shared with the elementary school, the teaching staff was realigned to provide a consistent grade level and content teachers for all three middle school grade levels.  

For example, there are now four grade-level teachers in sixth, seventh, and eighth grade.  Each teacher is a content specialist in ELA, math, science, or social studies at each grade level.  Grade-level teams meet weekly to discuss student progress in each of their content areas and how to provide Tier Two instruction for students who need intervention and enrichment.  The vertical content teachers also meet at another time weekly to determine Essential Learning Outcomes (ELOs), align assessments, and determine success criteria and expectations for students from one grade level to the next.  For example, the sixth, seventh, and eighth-grade math teachers meet weekly and have been focusing on aligning their instructional strategies as well as their learning outcomes and assessments.  The schedule change also allowed the staff to have an hour block for Tier Two and Tier Three specific times every day for all students.  

Our schedule has brought stability to our teams, and the ability to focus on the universal curriculum of ELOs and Tier Two and Tier Three time for addressing both additional instruction for students who need more as well as extensions for students who need additional challenges.  Because time is built into our day, the middle school staff has also bought into the continuous improvement process, not just for students but also for our professional learning.  The principles and processes of the PLC lifestyle have become ingrained in our school culture and have set expectations for our staff, students, and community now and in the future.

1. Monitoring student learning on a timely basis.

As we were building the PLC process and collaborative teams, the middle school staff was also revamping instruction and determining high-quality materials for a guaranteed and viable curriculum in all content areas.  Teams of content specialists focused on determining what materials and Essential Learning Outcomes (ELOs) were needed across the middle school grades.  Once the universal expectations were in place, and critical question number one about what we wanted students to learn was answered, teachers began focusing on the next question and what tools were needed for determining student learning.  Since our district already used Canvas at the middle school level, we tapped into one component of Canvas called Learning Mastery.  Teachers set their expectations of proficiency in Learning Mastery for each ELO that is being assessed.  During discussions with both grade level and content level teams, teachers can open their Learning Mastery pages and have a visual of who needs additional support or reteaching and who is ready for extensions or enrichments.  The Learning Mastery system allows teachers to review students' progress skill by skill and student by student.  

While adopting high-quality materials, the collaborative teams realized the need to focus on a few Essential Learning Outcomes.  It is not possible to meet all the standards listed at high levels of proficiency for all students.   Through collaborative team meetings, the content teams determined ELOs.  They used the three criteria for determining if a standard should be an ELO - 1) does it have leverage for future learning (pre-requisite skill), 2) is it assessed on high stake assessments (state test and/or district benchmark assessment), and 3) does it have endurance over time.  It took time to narrow the ELOs to a manageable number at each grade level, and as content teachers meet in their vertical alignment teams, there is a continuous refining process about both the ELOs and the success criteria at each grade level.

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

With clear Essential Learning Outcomes and success criteria, teacher teams are able to determine who needs additional support and who is ready for an extension.  During the weekly grade level team meetings, teachers share who has not made proficient levels of achievement on ELOs in their content area.  They then work on a plan for the next week about which students will receive additional support and reteaching of the ELOs.  There are times when more than one teacher is needing a particular student or group of students.  Because math scores had been concerning in the past couple of years, priority has been given to math interventions and then to literacy skills.  However, science and social studies teachers will also jump in to help with math and literacy interventions.  The data from common formative assessments are used to determine who needs additional support and exactly what skills are needed.

Because the middle school has a dedicated hour of the day for Tier Two and Tier Three, all students have access to interventions and enrichments.  Everyone is always working on something and no time is wasted.  The middle school staff was very active in redesigning the structure of this hour in the schedule.  We also have an online personalized learning program related to our district benchmark assessment for reading and math.  All students have time to work on their personalized learning path during the Tier Two and Tier Three hour throughout the week.  Each student’s learning pathway is based on their performance on the benchmark assessment.

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

The PLC journey has been a bumpy one at New Glarus Middle School.  Throughout the ten years of existence of our middle school, changes in staffing, grade levels, curriculum, schedules, administration, and COVID caused delays, stops, and starts. However, the vision to become a model middle school in the PLC process has never wavered.  Creating building norms and a purpose for our team meetings was essential for staff to develop a feeling of safety and be able to be vulnerable when they collaborate.  The shared norms and purpose are at the top of the middle school team notes protocol and are reviewed before each meeting.  

 

Grade level and content teams either used the same norms for their teams or revamped the norms to better reflect the needs of their team.  For example, the 7th-grade team personalized the norms for the needs of the adults on their team to be: keep focused on student concerns and Tier II; be timely; [behavior] matrix applies to us also; be present; follow through; share the load; be open to ideas; be conscious of our heart and soul theme.

As a district, we have created non-negotiables for both our universal or Tier One instruction and our Tier Two time.  The Tier One non-negotiables related to PLC critical question #1 - what do we want students to learn - and question #2 - how do we know if they have learned it.   Tier Two non-negotiables relate to PLC questions #3 and #4 - what do we do when students have not learned the ELOs and what do we do when they already know it.  The non-negotiables set the expectation for the work of the adults.  This has provided clear direction for new staff as we have onboarded new people to our middle school team.

Teachers at the middle school committed to two, hour-long meetings each week with their teams.  They meet during a prep period each week with their grade-level team.  This grade-level meeting has actually saved them time as they can plan their Tier Two and Tier Three interventions and enrichments during this meeting.  They can also review students’ social/emotional needs, determine how to support students and share the load for students' mental health concerns.   The second meeting is a content team meeting.  Teachers of content teams meet during their lunch hour once a week as well.  Even though teacher lunch is only thirty minutes, the other thirty minutes is either a band/choir period for students or academic support.  Grade-level teams have worked out supervision coverage to allow each team member to have an hour with their content team colleagues once a week as well.  The commitment to their teams and the work they are accomplishing for students is beyond admirable.     

Our collaborative teams focus on the data.  Whether it is a grade level team or a content team, teachers bring student data from common formative assessments related to the ELOs to the team meetings.  As there has been a turnover in staffing at the middle school, the work has continued to answer the four critical questions.  Only five of the 15 middle school teachers teaching this year (2022-2023) were part of the original staff who began the PLC journey together.  Therefore, building the capacity of teams to onboard new staff to the middle school has been a critical component in the success of students.  Having a clear mission, vision, and norms, using common formative assessments and data, and dedicating time in the schedule for interventions and enrichments has been instrumental in this continued growth for the staff and students.

Achievement Data Files

• ngms-i-ready-data-by-year--sheet1.pdf
• 6-8-achievement-data--2020-2023.pdf
• ngms--student-categories-data--sheet1.pdf
• ms-state-report-card-data-2020-2023--sheet1.pdf

Additional Achievement Data

In Wisconsin, schools receive a state report card.  The report card includes an overall score as well as scores in specific areas - achievement, growth, target groups, and on-track for graduation.  The overall score is also designated with a description with the highest level of distinction being Significantly Exceeds Expectations or five stars.  The middle school’s state report card data for the past three school years shows a significant improvement in the areas of student growth and closing the gaps for target group outcomes of students.  The overall score has continued to see improved growth since the pandemic. For the most recent report, the New Glarus Middle School has again received four stars or the Exceeds Expectations.  The goal in the next two years is to reach the five-star level, or the highest level of Significantly Exceeds Expectations.   

The Forward Exam is the Wisconsin state assessment given to third through eighth graders every year in reading and mathematics.  At the middle school level, eighth-grade students also take assessments in science and social studies.  This table shows the results of the Forward Exam in sixth through eighth grades at the middle school for the past three school years.  The percentages are the percent of students determined to be proficient or advanced on the state assessment as compared to the state average.  

The Forward Exam also breaks down the percentage of students proficient and advanced by category.  This table shares the categories of students labeled with disabilities, socioeconomically disadvantaged, and English Language learners.  To be a reportable data point from the state, the group size must be at least 20 students.  The data shows the combination of all three grade levels at the middle school for overall proficiency as compared to the state average.  The breakdowns below each subject are the combined three grade levels by each category.   

For a district benchmark assessment data point, we use the iReady Diagnostic assessment.  It is an online, adaptive assessment and provides our district with individual results as well as normative data.  We use the iReady Diagnostic Assessment tool three times a year to measure progress.  Our PLC teams review the data at the completion of these three data points to determine students who need additional support through a Tier Three plan and look for trends over time.  This document shares the growth of our middle school students in both English (ELA) and math for the past three school years.  

Additionally, we have developed a schoolwide learning outcome (SLO) goal, or SMART goal.  It is for all students to achieve at least 80% proficiency on the Essential Learning Outcomes for each grade level and subject area. In the past two years, we have started tracking the data for student achievement on the ELOs at the end of the year.  While we do not have trend data for this new data point at the middle school level yet, it has provided teaching teams with a focus on ELOs in regard to our school's SMART goal.  This document provides the reference for this year’s SLO, or SMART goal, and the benchmark data from last year that was used as a reference.  This is an ongoing area of growth for our collaborative teams around common formative assessments and essential learning outcomes that will propel our school’s results forward.  

The year prior to the pandemic, math and ELA scores had slipped across all three grades in middle school.  However, the sixth and seventh grades have made significant progress since Covid and we are focused on that trend continuing into 8th grade next year.  In the past two years, we have made changes to the schedule and the structure of the teaching teams to provide more consistency for students and collaboration among teachers.  This has resulted in overall increased performance for both English Language Arts and mathematics, as well as increased performance in our students by category.  We are proud of our growth, especially after a pandemic!  It is because of our strong teams collaborating with the intense purpose of student achievement that this has been our reality.

Project Lead the Way (PLTW)  Distinguished School Gateway - 

• 2017-2018
• 2018-2019

Wisconsin Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports (PBIS) Recognition -

• 2015-2016
• 2020-2021
• 2022-2023

5th/6th Grade Math Meet 

• 2012 - 1st place
• 2013 - 1st place
• 2015 - 2nd place
• 2016 - 1st place
• 2017 - 2nd place
• 2018 - 1st place

7th/8th Grade Math Meet

• 2015 - 1st place
• 2016 - 1st Place
• 2017 - 1st place
• 2018 - 2nd place

Math Olympiads - Highest Team Achievement Award

• 2012-2013
• 2013-2014
• 2014-2015
• 2015-2016
• 2016-2017

First Lego League Competition

• 2016 - Wisconsin Championship Presentation

Wisconsin Educational Media and Technology Association - Battle of the Books Competition

• 2015 - 3rd place in the state
• 2023 - 2nd place in the state

Files

• ngms-core-beliefs.pdf
• norm-poster.pdf
• tier-2-checklist-of-non-negotiables-3201.pdf
• tier-1-checklist-of-non-negotiables-8113.pdf
• 22-23-ngms-master-schedule--google-sheets.pdf