Professional Learning Communities at Work®

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, educators face an unprecedented challenge: how to close the learning gaps created by months of school closures and uneven access to virtual learning opportunities? In this breakout, Mike Mattos will discuss specific steps that schools can take to create a highly effective, multitiered system of supports to target learning gaps using the PLC at Work® process.

Singletons—teachers who are the only ones teaching a specific course or subject—often ask how they can effectively participate on a collaborative team. Additionally, leaders frequently ask what they should be doing to guide and support singletons. This webinar provides participants clear direction to help singletons engage in meaningful collaboration. Teachers and leaders receive templates they can implement immediately.

The focus is to show how your urban school can make an impact on student achievement and change the trajectory of student lives using the time available during the day, the resources in the book, and the Brilliance in the Building - your amazing staff! The greatness of this webinar is the review of all the resources in the book available for educators to use immediately. I created all of the reproducibles based on 25 years of extensive research and actual use in schools. Leaders and staff in urban schools cannot do this work in isolation; they must work together to accomplish their goals, so therefore the work in this book is grounded in the PLC at Work principles. Let’s go!

Alvin Thomas, EdD, is a principal in a school district in Georgia and a part-time professor at Kennesaw State University and Georgia State University. He has 17 years of experience as an assistant principal, student behavior program specialist, and teacher.

Adam R. Hill is an assistant superintendent overseeing 13 middle schools in a large metropolitan school district in Georgia.

Dr. Loni Fife currently serves as the director of curriculum and instruction for the Littleton Elementary School District in Arizona. She has worked to bring greater awareness to the power of educator collaboration to enhance student learning.

Laura Conwell is the principal of Longfellow Elementary in Bozeman, Montana. She has nearly 20 years of experience as an elementary school teacher and principal.

During her more than 15 years in education, Tina Smith has proudly served Pasadena Independent School District, a Model PLC at Work® district, as a four-year, district-level summer school program manager while working as assistant principal at Nelda Sullivan Middle School, a Model PLC at Work school.

Cultivate and sustain a productive academic environment for every student with interventions featured in this Behavior Solutions Portable Event Package. Using professional learning communities (PLC) and multi-tiered system of supports (MTSS/RTI) processes, educators can use targeted intervention methods to improve behavior and foster a positive school culture.

Josh Chastain, EdD, is currently the superintendent of Harrisonville Schools in Missouri. In his 25 years of educational experience, he has served as an elementary school teacher in Springfield, Missouri, a principal at multiple levels, and the director of curriculum, instruction, and assessment, professional development, digital learning, and federal programs in Nixa, Missouri.