Tom R. Ellisor Elementary (2023)

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

While our campus mission is to do "whatever it takes" to promote students' social, emotional, and academic growth, we haven't always had a framework in place to facilitate the processes to ensure that this growth was occurring for all of our students. As a campus, we adopted the PLC at Work process just over three years ago. We embedded these processes into our mission and began to put systems into place to identify students' needs, track students' growth, develop plans for interventions and extensions, and celebrate successes along the way for teams and students.

Two years ago, our district placed Academic Coordinators at every campus to drive the PLC process. Team agendas are used by all of our grade level teams to ensure that each step of the process is taken and to document important conversations and decisions made during collaborative times. Data trackers are utilized by grade level teams, as well as students, for all content areas to inform our teams of students’ needs. Our PLC has become very proficient in the creation, implementation, and analysis of team created CFAs and assessments. Our Academic Coordinator built capacity in our grade level teams by creating and inspiring a guiding coalition on our campus.

Before the school year began, this guiding coalition met to develop goals for the school year - for students and our teams - to build upon where we left off in the year before. We met regularly to grow professionally and personally as leaders with the goal of building capacity within our grade level teams. Feedback has been a focus of our campus this year. We have challenged our guiding coalition, as well as all teachers, to become comfortable seeking and giving feedback with the goal of continuous growth. Our student efficacy is high and we even have created a growth mindset in our students; they are 100% a part of the PLC process. We continuously completed PLC progress checks as a campus to identify areas for growth and celebrate successes. We do not “do” PLC, it is who we are as a campus.

1. Monitoring student learning on a timely basis.

Our district, with a commitment to always keep the focus on student learning, provides a robust curriculum for teacher teams, with the support of specialists and academic coordinators, to use for all content areas; the materials selected are backed by research and aligned with our state’s standards. Our campus has built in time each day for our grade level teams to meet and collaborate. Additionally, once a week, an extra ninety minutes is provided to our grade level teams to meet alongside district specialists and their academic coordinator. During this time, teams identify and deconstruct the most essential learning targets, pace the curriculum based on the essential standards, build assessments and CFAs aligned to the essential standards, determine proficiency for each standard, and analyze student data to 1)inform instruction, 2) provide intervention for those that have not yet mastered the standard, and 3) provide extension for those that have mastered the standard.  Student and teacher learning is prioritized at our campus and this is evident in the systems that have been built for teachers to efficiently execute each step of the PLC process. Each team has a designated Google drive where all artifacts are housed. The agenda includes a checklist to ensure each step of the process is completed with fidelity and purpose; it is not simply a compliance piece. Student learning is monitored regularly; informally and formally. Walkthroughs with immediate feedback are provided to teachers by other teachers, campus administrators, and district leadership. Evidence of current levels of student learning are collected by teachers through anecdotal notes and strategic questioning strategies. Collaboratively, teams analyze CFA, screener, and assessment data immediately to address individual needs of all of our students. Within one to two days, students are organized into new groups based on these needs and each meet with the most qualified teacher for the particular skill. Teams also analyze data, by student, by standard to determine which teaching strategies were most effective.

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

Our campus, within each grade level team, continuously evaluates students to determine their level of learning and group them with students that have similar needs. A culture of high expectations has been established at our campus. It is the expectation that teachers will do whatever it takes for everyone of our students to learn. After each screener, CFA, or assessment the team will meet to analyze data. At this time, groups are created for each essential skill or standard. Students are placed within these groups based on their level of understanding. Some students will require additional support through intervention and others will receive extension based on their level of understanding. The data is also analyzed by teachers’ performance. Students that need the most support for a standard will be grouped with the teacher that showed the highest level of performance for that standard. Grade level teams flex these students during a designated time during  the day. Our campus also has created a schedule that supports intervention. During this block of time, called W.I.N (What I Need), students are pulled to various places in the building to work on skills specific to their needs. On a larger scale, our SIT (Student Intervention Team) meets every six weeks to monitor and adjust students’ intervention plans based on their growth in reading, math and/or behavior. Teacher teams discuss, and celebrate, students’ success within every collaborative meeting. Our goal is that students are always moving forward; we are intentional with every move that we make to ensure this growth.

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 to work as members of high-performing collaborative teams that focus on efforts on improved learning for all students has been our biggest push as a campus over the last few years. We began this journey by making our vision a living, breathing entity and not simply words on a letterhead. At Ellisor Elementary, we are dedicated to promoting students’ social, emotional, and academic growth by doing whatever it takes. This commitment is entirely evident in behaviors and actions displayed on our campus everyday. The campus instructional leader and principal, Kristin Boyd, has created the expectation that all teams will be deeply committed to the PLC process. Her investment in teachers and kids serves as a model and driving force for each team. Teachers and teams set goals to continuously push their own growth and to grow as collaborative teams. Building a culture of feedback has played a huge role in the success of building our teams. The teachers embraced vulnerability, being comfortable with being uncomfortable, so that they continue to grow alongside their students. Teachers and campus leaders have QR codes posted outside of their doors which link to a form for others to provide feedback to them. Teachers recognize when things are going great, where teachers/administrators might get stuck, and provide steps for them to take to get better. Capacity is built within each team with the leadership of a team facilitator to guide the process. Through leadership meetings, team facilitators are given the tools needed and challenged to move their team forward. Team members alternate between roles and responsibilities to maintain a seamless  interdependence. Regularly teams partake in a PLC progress check to assess their own proficiency within key components of the PLC process. This data is shared with the guiding coalition of the school to get a big picture of where our campus is a whole. It is also shared with each grade level team so that they can celebrate their successes and set goals for areas where they can grow. The success of our students continues to drive our teams to do more for our students. 

Achievement Data Files

2022 TEA School Report Card - Overall Rating of "A" (previously a "D"), School Progress "A", Closing the Gaps "A", Student Acheivement "B"

Distinction Desigations from TEA - Academic Acheivement in Mathematics (2022), Top 25% Compartive Academic Growth (2022), Top 25% Comparitive Closing the Gaps (2022)

District PLC of the Month (Kindergarten, October 2021)

District PLC of the Month (First Grade, April 2022)

Top