***PROMISING PRACTICES SCHOOL***

Lincoln STEM began our PLC journey eight years ago prior to an overhaul and creation of our STEM identity which has succeeded from the implementation of the PLC process.  The Watertown Unified School District of which we preside, created a multi-professional collaborative team to attend the PLC Conference in Minneapolis to learn from the educational authors such as, Richard DuFour, Rebecca DuFour, and Mark Mattos among others that have inspired our journey. From there a leadership team was created and a plan for implementation and teaching the benefits to all staff began. A proposal to our Board of Education for common planning collaborative time across the WUSD came from our learning there as well, and our school board unanimously supported our efforts. Since 2016, we have had a one hour early dismissal that has been supported by our community of Watertown that is centered around the PLC process and student learning.

Over the course of the past seven years we have refined our PLC processes.  Our common collaborative time has allowed us to work within a specific mission and vision for our school.  Each team has developed norms to reflect healthy professional boundaries that are student driven.  We have worked to intentionally use a data driven approach to the learning process to refine our teaching and support student’s specific needs. Our teams have developed color coding spreadsheets to track student progress and it is reviewed weekly.  Adjustments to our teaching then are made along with an action plan to ensure each learning minute is utilized to its fullest and tailored to a student centered approach. We have created a system for intervention using data protocols and flexible groupings. We meet three times a school year in a larger school wide team to go over the full scope of our data from formal benchmark assessments and review school systems to ensure that our broad mission and vision is being honored.

In the field of education we know that refining our practice is a career-long pursuit. We continue to utilize our common planning time, development of a culture of high expectations, and reflect collaboratively on our practices each day we are with our students.  The WUSD sent a leadership team this past summer, 2022, to the PLC Institute to refresh our practices.  Lincoln STEM consisted of the largest team to attend showing our passion and dedication to the PLC process-a true testament to the success we have seen with our students.  This school year we have created our building goals strictly around literacy, math, innovation, behaviors, and attendance using the PLC framework.  Our staff has centered their Educator Effectiveness goals around it as well.  In our collaborative teams we have worked to develop 15 day cycles for each subject area, including our Related Arts classes.  Our Staff Leadership Team is completing a book study around Learning By Doing (DuFour, DuFour, Eaker, Many, and Mattos 2016) to guide our practices and monitor our growth as we proceed into the future.

1. Monitoring student learning on a timely basis.

1. Common planning time

2. Color-coded spreadsheets/data protocol

3. Developing 15 data cycles with timelines for checking student progress 

4. Progress monitoring 

5. Data meetings

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

1. Using data protocol to identify students in need of support 

2. Flexible grouping

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

1. Common planning

2. PLC Institute 

3. Creating a culture with high expectations for all staff to be doing the work (collective commitments)

4. Learning By Doing

5. Educator Effectiveness 

6. Team Leader Meetings

Achievement Data Files

• 35-eoe-data-model-plc.xlsx
• ela-lincoln-overall-only--sheet1.pdf
• public_lincoln_elementary_2021-22-7416.pdf
• public_lincoln_elementary_2018-19-8991.PDF
• public_lincoln_elementary_2020-21-7309.pdf

Additional Achievement Data

We have strong growth in the area Language arts for the past three years along with growth in the area of students who are in the catorgery of economically disadvantaged.

Files

• rl3-3-data-cycle-feb_march-docx.pdf
• reading-data-cfa_csa--rl-3-2.pdf
• slt-agenda.pdf
• copy-of-9_28_22-agenda-and-notes-docx.pdf