Professional Learning Communities at Work®

Jack Baldermann has been a passionate educational leader for over 30 years. His experience includes leading several high-poverty urban schools to significant success and supporting eight different priority or high-poverty schools to become Model PLC at Work® schools.

Jon Yost is the recently retired associate superintendent of curriculum and instruction for Sanger Unified School District in California. He has worked in public education at the elementary, secondary, and district levels.

Luis F. Cruz, PhD, is a sought-after presenter, coach, thought leader, and accomplished author with over 30 years of experience in education.

Regina Stephens Owens, EdD is an internationally recognized presenter and practitioner who specializes in creating a culture of connectivity and collaboration while utilizing systems thinking.

William M. Ferriter uses his 29 years of experience as a full-time classroom teacher to design professional development sessions for educators on topics ranging from establishing professional learning communities and effective systems of intervention to integrating meaningful differentiation, extension, and student-involved assessment opportunities into classroom instruction.

Learn how U.S. Grant High School changed from the “dropout factory” to an engine of hope for the students it serves, and how its success can be replicated anywhere.

Casey R. Ahner is currently the coordinator of special programs at Albuquerque Bilingual Academy, and he has served as a special education teacher, counselor, assistant principal, and principal at the intermediate and elementary levels.

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.

We know the pandemic has significantly affected learning results for students. However, there are ways of working differently in schools that will overcome these deficits and prove that our work in schools can be more powerful than a pandemic! A new mindset is needed to achieve new results.

How does your school respond when students don’t learn? Compelling evidence shows that response to intervention (RTI) successfully engages school staff in a collective process to provide every child with the additional time and support they need to learn at high levels. The goal of this session is to show how the PLC at Work process creates the larger schoolwide framework required to implement a highly effective, multitiered system of supports (MTSS).