A program built on teacher collaboration and prioritizing educational standards is making a difference for students in Flandreau Public Schools.
A new platform called Professional Learning Communities has put an emphasis on teaching students those skills that they need in order to succeed and, in the process, raised test scores.
According to elementary school principal Jay Swatek, PLC uses teacher collaboration to set priority standards in each grade.
“As a school, we decided what standards are priority standards,” Swatek said. “When we say ‘priority,’ we mean they are the most important in that grade. The kids have to master those to be successful at the next level.”
Swatek initially learned about PLC from his brother Dan, an elementary principal in the South Sioux City School District. A Department of Education grant paid for training in PLC through Solution Tree, an education company that specializes in the collaborative program.
In addition to Solution Tree training, Swatek took a van load of teachers to his brother’s school in South Sioux City.
“We were able to see how teachers met and pinpointed that collaboration conversation on student needs and student data,” Swatek said.
In PLC, teams of teachers met to decide each grade’s priority standards. They then met with teams from the grade above and the grade below for their input.
“We’re trying to vertically align those standards for our kids,” Swatek said.
To explain what “priority standards” include, Swatek used an example from fourth-grade math. A priority standard would be student mastery of a multi-step word problem. A standard would be having students draw and identify lines and angles.
“We’re not skipping standards that aren’t priority standards,” Swatek said, “but what we have deemed as priority, we are guaranteeing, to our best ability, that each kid master those.”
As students master a priority standard, they move on to enrichment for an even deeper understanding. Students who have yet to master a priority standard will work in intervention until they have achieved mastery.
“The evidence shows that if we get mastery of those priority standards, there’s a residual effect of learning those other standards,” Swatek said. “The learning in those standards also goes up.”
Swatek said evidence also shows that another benefit of PLC is an increase in test scores.
“We have jumped on this journey because of test scores,” Swatek said, “but now that we’re on it, test scores are a side product. The main benefit we’re getting is improved student learning and improved student achievement.”
PLC started in the elementary school and is being implemented in the middle school and high school as well.
According to Swatek, Flandreau is experiencing success with PLC because of the district’s teachers. The teachers are the ones setting the priority standards, developing ownership of the program.
“That ownership makes them want to go do it,” Swatek said. “They believe it’s the right thing for our kids for student learning, student achievement.”
