Magnolia Parkway Elementary (2023)

  1. PLC Story
  2. PLC Practices
  3. Achievement Data
  4. Awards
  5. Resources

Our journey to becoming a PLC at Work began in 2018. In the beginning, we dipped our toes in the water by providing teachers a built-in time during the school day to collaborate and share best practices. In addition, this was the first year for our campus to have a time built into the master schedule for providing interventions. Although this gave us a springboard to begin the process of becoming a true PLC at Work campus, there were many components that we didn’t yet understand. In 2019, now with the support of our district and Solution Tree coaching for our administrators, we dove into building a shared understanding and commitment to the PLC at Work process. This work began with all staff being involved in creating our campus’ shared mission and vision statement including collective commitments. Early in the process, it was crucial to form our Guiding Coalition as this team would be a powerful force in driving the work of becoming a high-functioning PLC. With the help of two great texts, Learning By Doing and What About Us? we were able to build a consensus for the PLC process. Our teams participated in a school-wide book study with these texts and collaborated throughout the process to determine what steps would be needed to all be in sync with the movement towards becoming a PLC at Work. With the collaborative time already built into our master schedule from the previous year, we reformed the purpose of this time to allow teachers to dive deep into the PLC process by identifying the essential standards, unpacking these standards into specific targets, creating and planning assessments including common formative assessments, and planning high-quality lessons around these identified targets. During this collaborative time, we also plunge into the data to ensure students receive the appropriate interventions and extensions. This is accomplished through our built-in intervention/extension time within the school day where we utilize flexible grouping of students to maximize teachers’ strengths according to the data. This allows us to meet the needs of each student to ensure mastery of the grade-level essential skills. 

We strive to build upon our practices and processes in order to maintain a culture of continuous improvement across the campus. Our Guiding Coalition meets regularly to reflect on components of our school’s PLC process through team and self-evaluations, documents, and data to ensure we are sustaining our shared vision and mission. Our Guiding Coalition does regular research on best educational practices and works together to strengthen their leadership skills. Book studies such as Help Your Team: Overcoming Common Collaborative Challenges in a PLC at Work, Dare to Lead by Brene’ Brown, and All Things PLC articles are referenced as we review our work and make the continual improvements necessary. 

As rewarding as it is to see the outcomes derived from doing the work of a PLC, it does not go unnoticed that it is also some of the most challenging work educators do. With this, we recognized that our staff's well-being needed support to sustain the work of a PLC and live their best life in and out of the classroom. We were fortunate to secure Paula Maeker to present to our staff the gift of Educator Wellness. She utilized the four dimensions of physical, mental, emotional, and social well-being along with the 12 routines for improvement within these dimensions. She emphasized how focusing on these components would help to ensure professional wellness for our staff which would be reflected in our student learning outcomes. 

Although we are fully submerged in the PLC at Work process and our mindset has shifted from “my kids” to “our kids”, we never lose sight that excellence is a moving target and refinements will always need to be made. 

 

1. Monitoring student learning on a timely basis.

Our Curriculum and Instruction department provides district curriculum documents that reflect the timeline of the scope and sequence. Each collaborative team in conjunction with district content specialists, reviews the standards and determines the essential skills within a given unit. Once the essential standards are identified, collaborative teams work together to unpack these standards which includes; identifying the cognitive verb, focusing on the learning targets embedded within the standard, and determining the level of rigor. Having this guaranteed and viable curriculum secures that all students have access to the same quality and level of learning.

The next step is creating end-of-unit assessments and common formative assessments. Using this backward design ensures we are aligned with the grade level essential standards. Common formative assessments allow us to monitor student mastery of skills across teachers within the grade level. During the development of assessments, teams create a blueprint that includes a rubric to guarantee consistency of student expectations across the grade level. 

As a collaborative team, we map out the essential standards for the unit using the 15-Day Challenge process. Our teams have attended professional development sessions on the 15-Day Challenge process presented by Solution Tree representative, Maria Nielsen. Teams have deep discussions surrounding how many days each standard should be focused on. Teams also decide when common formative assessments will occur to ensure all students are learning at high levels. Teachers administer these assessments within 24 hours of each other so that we are able to respond to the data in a timely manner. Data is collected on all students on our school-wide data tracker to monitor student learning immediately following all assessments.  

 

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

Creating systems of intervention to provide students with additional time and support for learning starts with data talks from grade-level assessments. In these discussions, teams review student mastery of the essential learning standards and identify students that need an intervention or extension. Collaborative teams prepare to provide the necessary support by discussing what will be retaught or extended and how the instruction will be delivered.

In 2018 we began the implementation of a built-in intervention time into our schedule which we named Bulldog Block. Over the years, Bulldog Block has transformed our campus intervention to help us better meet the needs of all students and provide additional support as well as enrichment. During this time, teachers utilize each other's strengths to flexibly group students based on their assessment data. 

In addition to analyzing data, our campus also has systems in place to identify students not meeting grade-level expectations. Our Student Intervention Team meets regularly to review student progress from screeners, assessments, and teacher input. We are able to make purposeful decisions to intervene and address educational gaps across our campus.

Beyond academics, our campus supports social-emotional learning for our students. Utilizing our built-in time for teachers to do the work of a PLC, our students benefit from this time with ongoing lessons in the areas of emotional regulation, executive functioning, and interpersonal skills provided by staff members such as our school counselor, fine arts teachers, and additional staff. Data is collected during this time to identify students not meeting grade-level expectations in these areas. At this point, mini circles and partner work are Tier 2 interventions used with students needing additional practice. For students identified as needing intensive Tier 3 SEL support, we also respond with formal skills groups meeting more frequently and with a lower student-to-adult ratio. Tier 3 skills groups are facilitated by a mental health professional. 

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

Building teacher capacity begins with our Guiding Coalition. Our Guiding Coalition consists of Administrators, an Academic Coordinator, an Instructional Coach, and Team Facilitators from each grade level. They serve as the driving force to building teacher capacity within their team by meeting regularly to deepen their learning of the PLC at Work process, researching educational best practices, and developing their leadership skills. 

The dedicated work of our Guiding Coalition translates into our high-performing collaborative teams. Each collaborative team is provided a built-in time within the school day to focus their efforts on improving student learning. During this time, attention is specifically given to discussing the "how". Collaborative teams share best practices and strategies in order to build capacity in one another and provide high levels of learning for all students. 

In addition to the discussion of the "how", we utilize a video recording platform to share the implementation of shared teaching practices and strategies which allows teachers to self-monitor their growth. Many times, high-functioning collaborative teams choose to record synonymous lessons to evaluate their alignment, rigor level, and instructional delivery.

 

Achievement Data Files

Additional Achievement Data

Our school district has utilized several different screeners for K-2. We have seen the value of using the mClass screener and are finishing up our 3rd consecutive year. Since we do not have end-of-year results through mClass at this time, we have included a prior year's data using reading levels as our screener. However, we can anticipate the positive trend we are seeing with mClass will continue. In combination with the varied screeners and school closures due to Covid, end-of-year state results for 2019-2020 were not obtained.  Although we were unable to collect state data in 2019-20, we did collect local data which is represented in our data collection submitted. 

Since beginning the PLC process on our campus, goal setting has become a consistent and valued practice. Not only do teachers set grade-level SMART goals, but students also set individual academic goals. These goals are monitored and tracked. We celebrate goals met by teachers, teams, and students. We have seen growth in both teacher performance and student performance through this consistent practice. 

The rapidly growing population in our community has been a challenge as our school demographics change and numbers increase. Due to this growth, we have recently added 23 new teachers to our campus. It has been crucial for us to maintain and continue to strengthen the PLC process and our culture of collaboration as we continue to strive to meet our shared mission and vision. 

 

Imagine Nation 2020-2021 Beacon School- Imagine Learning

Magnolia ISD 4th grade Collaborative Team of the Month 2021-2022

Two District Teachers of the Month from our campus

Two District Teachers of the Year from our campus

Recognized as a 2022-2023 Certified Grief-Sensitive School

Magnolia Education Foundation Grant Recipients

 

 

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