Agenda Item
3.06 Action Item #6
Meeting:06/09/2009 Board Worksession - Instruction 8 a.m.
Category:3. BOARD SUPERINTENDENT AGREEMENT 2008-09
Agenda Type:Information
Agenda Item Content
Board / Superintendent Agreement
End-of-Year Report

Department: Instruction and Leadership

Action Item #6: Continue to emphasize, through communication and practice, the importance of meeting the needs of each child through the implementation of year-two of the Professional Learning Communities Concepts in all schools in the district.

Achievement Timeline: 2008-09

Achievement Plan:
Current Status of Progress:

During the summer of 2008, seven elementary schools started their formal training by attending the three-day PLC Institute at Lake of the Ozarks. Throughout the remainder of the year, the coaching teams from each of the schools attended one-day training sessions almost monthly. Several team members and other staff attended the Powerful Learning Conference in St. Louis

The ten elementary schools entering their second year of training continued working with the KCRPDC PLC group and attended four full-day sessions throughout the year as well as send representatives to the Powerful Learning Conference.

The secondary buildings developed individual plans with the KCRPDC staff, focused on topic areas tailored to their individual school needs, and sent staff to the Powerful Learning Conference

During three of the four District Leadership Team members, PLC topics were discussed with an emphasis on developing commitments to the PLC process by the administrators. Commitments were written, will be reviewed by a sub-team this summer, and then shared back with the full team in the fall.

A PLC brochure was developed by the Community Relations office and is available on-line and in the reception area of SLC. In addition, several articles were printed in the local newspaper and also on-line. Dr. McGehee refers to PLCs frequently in his on-line messages and also as a guest editor to the Lee’s Summit Journal. Discussions have been held with the PTA Council to keep them abreast of the processes and accomplishments.

Each building is allocated a PLC budget from the district to support their training and attendance at the Powerful Learning Conference. The district spent $86,000 during the 2008-09 school year in support of PLC training. The district supported training of three coaches per school. The payment for the trainers and the substitutes needed for teachers to attend training made up most of the cost for PLCs, other than those used for the Powerful Learning Conference. The district supported the attendance of one staff member per second year buildings and three staff members per first year buildings to attend the conference. If schools chose to have more coaches trained or send more staff to the conference, they paid for it out of their individual building budget.

Toward the middle of May the principals were administered the PLC Implementation Survey. This is the second year data have been collected and the comparison results can be found in the 2009 CSIP Review within the Objective Five metrics section. It is also an attachment to this report.

Additionally, the Management Services Operations Team attended four PLC sessions hosted by Lewis Gowen focusing on learning, collaboration, results and best practices. The Operations Team will continue to imbed PLC activities within their daily operations.

Instructional Technology and Curriculum and Instruction departments also participated in PLC meetings with Mr. Gowen.

Attachments: Professional Learning Communities Teams
Professional Learning Communities Training Plan for 2008-09
Professional Learning Communities Implementation Survey Results
PLC Brochure

Submitted by: Dr. Starlin-Horner

PLC.pdf