Washington Elementary School began implementing the DuFour, DuFour & Eaker model of Professional Learning Communities at Work during the 2006-07 school year. The school district made a commitment to our community by implementing a monthly 2-hour late start for collaboration; in turn, those collaborative teams have dedicated themselves to improve their instruction and student learning by utilizing their common planning time, creating additional collaborative times every other week to analyze data, developing essential learner outcomes and fine-tuning instructional strategies to meet the needs of our students. The teams developed norms, SMART Goals, grade level specific essential learner outcomes aligned to state standards and developed common assessments to determine areas where students needed additional support. Based on the needs of the students, collaborative teams have utilized their data to flexibly reorganize groups of kids for small group instruction in reading and math and for our intervention/enrichment block of time that was developed within the master schedule, called WIN (What I Need) Time.

As a school, our data historically indicated major issues both academically and behaviorally; the data clearly made the case that we weren’t meeting the needs of our students. Our initial steps included having the difficult conversation about whether we believe all kids can learn and learn at high levels. We shifted the way we delivered interventions from utilizing a paraprofessional model that worked with our highest need students to our present model of placing them with highly trained teachers. Our collaborative teams moved from having conversations about field trips, playground issues, etc. to developing norms, SMART goals, ELO’s and identifying appropriate methods to improve student learning. Today, Washington Elementary School functions as a Professional Learning Community because of the commitment we made to one another, the understanding that all students do not necessarily learn on the same day or in the same way and by committing ourselves to providing time and developing a structure of support for all students to achieve.

1. Monitoring student learning on a timely basis.

All students, K-5, are assessed using the NWEA and DIBELS tests three times per year, fall, winter, and spring. The DIBELS results are utilized to target instruction for those who have not hit the grade-level benchmark. Students who have not yet benchmarked are first discussed within their collaborative teams and when needed are brought to the Problem Solving Team to discuss and properly place students in an appropriate intervention, with a trained teacher, in an intervention that is used to meet their individual need and progress monitored every 1-2 weeks. NWEA results have allowed us to goal-set with students, monitor student progress and adjust our instruction and the instructional groups based on individual needs.

Classroom teachers developed Essential Learner Outcomes aligned to state standards and have created common formative assessments to utilize for each unit of math and reading. The results of the formative assessments are used to differentiate instruction during whole and small group lessons, as well as during WIN Time.

All classroom teachers, special education teachers and ELL teachers meet with the principal on a quarterly basis about their students of need, i.e. “WIN Kids”. The purpose of the meeting is to identify students that need additional support academically, as well as develop support in the social/emotional areas. We analyze the individual schedule of each child to ensure that the staff is maximizing the learning time for all, taking into account the times our Tier II and III students leave the classroom for additional support to be sure they are not missing critical new instruction.

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

Washington has created WIN (What I Need) Time, an intervention/enrichment block of time that allows us to flood each grade level with ELL, SPED, Title, Reading Intervention teachers and paraprofessional support in the classroom rather than pulling students from other subjects. WIN Time was developed by collaborative teams carefully looking at their daily schedules and practices. In the past, we failed to treat time as preciously as needed; by tightening up our transitions, lunchtime, classroom management and holding true to the master schedule we were able to carve out 30 minutes everyday to give children the extra time and support they need for growth. Instruction is differentiated for small groups based off their common formative assessments and DIBELS progress monitoring to target the skills that need to be reinforced or further developed. Intervention groups are based on the similar needs of individual students and these are determined through collaboration between grade level collaborative teams and the Title I/Intervention Teachers collaborative team.

We instituted the Positive Behavioral Intervention and Supports (PBIS) system to better meet the needs of our students who not only struggle academically, but also behaviorally. Utilizing the School-wide Information System (SWIS) we track discipline referrals and drill down to identify students that are struggling and work to find the root cause of the behavior. The implementation of our PBIS system called Washington Wildcat PAWS (Provide Respect, Act Safely, Work Hard, Show Responsibility) has led to a dramatic reduction of discipline referrals.  Historically students spent an average of 29 minutes out of the classroom per referral. By reducing the amount of referrals and reteaching our expectations, we have kept children in the classroom and prevented them from missing critical new learning.  Utilizing the PBIS/RTI framework of 80 -15--5, Washington Elementary has consitently met the needs 80+% of students needs with core instruction.  This has resulted in less students needing tier II and III support.

2012-13     81.25% - 10.23%  - 8.52%

2013-14     89.74% - 7.37%  -  2.89%

2014-15     89.9%  -  7.83%  -  2.27%

2015-16     87.07% -  9.27%  -  3.66%

2016-17    90.18%  -  6.46%  -  3.36%

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

The master schedule has been created to establish common planning time several days a week for collaboration. The school district has established a monthly two-hour late start for PLC teams to meet and as a school we have established a two-hour collaborative time per team in addition to the scheduled late start, which is scheduled the week following the late start. Our staff meetings have become professional development opportunities focused on developing instructional strategies to meet the needs of our children. As a staff, we have focused our professional development on engaging students in their learning, meeting their individual instructional needs and developing better strategies through book studies on Reciprocal Teaching, The Highly Engaged Classroom, Pyramid Response to Intervention and others that are helping us to meet the needs of each individual. These opportunities are occurring in their collaborative teams, as well as being led at staff meetings by the principal and the building Continuous Improvement Coach. Over 75% of the instructional staff has attended the Professional Learning Communities at Work Institute over the last four years, which has helped bring a common understanding to the purpose of our occupation, a common language and a definite direction for us to follow.

Additional Achievement Data

 

Year	School Percent Proficient MCA Math	District Percent Proficient MCA Math	State Percent Proficient MCA Math
2012	74%	70.2%	61.3%
2013	75.5%	68.6%	60.2%
2014	77.3%	69.6%	60.5%
2015	77.2%	70.1%	60.2%
2016	76.1%	67.1%	59.5%

 

 

Year	School Percent Proficient MCA Rdg.	District Percent Proficient MCA Rdg.	State Percent Proficient MCA Rdg.
2012	90.1%	80.2%	75.3%
2013*	67.1%	64.5%	57.6%
2014	69.5%	64.4%	58.8%
2015	72.4%	65.4%	59.5%
2016	73.9%	66.9%	59.9%

*MCA reading assessment changed in 2013 

2016-17 

Reading	Washington	District	State
3rd grade	61%	70%	57%
4th grade	72%	65%	57%
5th grade	74%	78%	68%

2016-17

Math	Washington	District	State
3rd grade	72%	78%	68%
4th grade	86%	78%	67%
5th grade	62%	66%	57%

Since our shift to becoming a Professional Learning Community in 2006, Washington Elementary has made impressive gains and has moved from a school consistently in the lower half of the district elementary schools to one of the top performing in the district and consistently above the state and district average. The past two school years we have been recognized by the State of Minnesota as a Reward School for placing in the top 15% of all Title I schools. Washington Elementary has shown an upward trend in all subject areas at all grade levels over the past 4 years, other than a dip in math scores in 2012 with the implementation of a new state standardized test in math.  

Reward School – Top 15% of Title I Schools - Minnesota Department of Education

• 2010-11
• 2011-12
• 2014-15
• 2015-16

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