Educational Service Center

Educational Service Center Information

Name:  Riverside County Office of Education, Division of Educational Leadership Services
Address: 3939 13th Street, Riverside, CA  92501
Phone: (951) 826-6388
Fax: (951) 826-6954
Contact: Terry Wilhelm (director), Jay Westover (consultant)
Emails: twilhelm@rcoe.us, jayw@educationalefficacy.com

Demographics

The PLC School Leadership Team (SLT) program coordinated by the Riverside County Office of Education, Division of Educational Leadership Services (ELS) supports schools in becoming highly functioning professional learning communities.  This is a two year program consisting of 10 training sessions and interim school site work focused on developing leadership capacity, implementing structures and processes of a PLC and increasing student academic achievement.  ELS uses a core group of consultants to facilitate the SLT program.  The program description has been provided by Jay Westover and the evidence of effectiveness is representative of the schools that he directly supported.  Schools from two districts in Riverside County, California are represented; Moreno Valley Unified School District and Lake Elsinore Unified School District.

	SLT Schools	District	State
White	17	28	30
Hispanic	59	54	49
African A	18	12	8
LEP	38	38	25
F&R lunch	68	42	50

 

Student Achievement Data

Present Student Achievement Data in at least three points to demonstrate trends

2004-2007 Percent Increase in Percent Proficient in English

Schools	% Increase
Bear V.	58
Sunny M.	58
Districts	27
Butterfield	55
Vista H.	26
State	21
Moreno	46
Landmark	58
Serrano	24
Canyon L.	80

2004-2007 Percent Increase in Percent Proficient in Math

Schools	% Increase
Bear V.	45
Sunny M.	30
Districts	25
Butterfield	51
Vista H.	16
State	21
Moreno	36
Landmark	21
Serrano	35
Canyon L.	30

 

2004-2007 Increase in Percent Proficient in English

	SLT Schools	District	State
White	48	23	16
Hispanic	59	40	40
African A	51	36	32
LEP	59	70	41
F&R lunch	59	41	38

2004-2007 Increase in Percent Proficient in Math

	SLT Schools	District	State
White	28	20	15
Hispanic	38	28	35
African A	29	37	36
LEP	48	52	32
F&R lunch	41	36	32

 

Academic Performance Index (API)

Year	SLT Schools	District	State
2004	673	662	690
2007	720	698	728

 

Please comment on any aspect of the data that you believe is particularly significant.

Schools that participated in the SLT program had significantly higher populations of at-risk students as compared to the representative districts and state.  Irrespective of this trend, SLT schools showed greater gains in almost all student subgroups for both English and math standards proficiency.  In addition, SLT schools had a significantly greater increase in Academic Performance Index (a measure of academic performance and growth of schools in California) as compared to both the representative districts and state.

 

Please present additional information that indicates your efforts to build a professional learning community have had a positive impact on students and/or teachers.

The SLT program is a proven process for schools to become professional learning communities.  Training is delivered to a cohort of schools with facilitators serving as coaches for the design and implementation of strategic interim school site work.  Each session focuses on two strands, school leadership and student academic achievement, which are connected to the Cultural Shifts found within Learning by Doing.  During each session, schools create SMART goals for their interim work that focus on supporting the implementation of a PLC, increasing student achievement, enhancing the capacity of teacher teams, and enacting the Cultural Shifts at their school site. 

Please elaborate on strategies you have found to be effective in the following areas:

1. Monitoring student learning on a timely basis.

A component of the SLT program is for school leadership teams to assess the extent to which critical foundations of a PLC exist at their site; a focus on learning, a collaborative culture, collective inquiry into best practice, action orientation, commitment to continuous improvement and school improvement planning, and a results orientation.  School leadership teams accomplish this by administering a rating scale survey to all staff to discern the degree to which it is perceived that a collaborative culture focused on results and learning exists at each school.  This sets the stage for the continuous monitoring of student achievement and the collective development of best practices to ensure all students learn.  The expectation of the SLT program is that schools establish structures that provide teacher teams a minimum of 2 hours and preferably 4 hours of collaboration time per month.  The Critical Issues for Team Consideration in Learning by Doing is used as a framework to ensure that school leadership teams are strategic in supporting their teacher teams in the effective use of collaboration time.  As part of the training, school leadership teams are provided tools and routines in the form of data and focus walk protocols which have been proven to be high leverage processes to maintain a continuous focus on student learning results and collective development of best practices.

 

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

The SLT program uses the California Department of Education’s Academic Program Survey (APS), response to intervention model (RtI) and pyramid of interventions concept to support school leadership teams in implementing systems of interventions that support the learning of all students.  The APS provides a structural framework for aligning the master schedule with appropriate core academic interventions (benchmark, strategic and intensive) for all students.  The concept of a system of interventions is effectively conveyed in the video Through New Eyes which provides the school leadership teams with a mental model from which to discern the extent that their schools’ structures and culture affords additional time and support for student learning.  Again, the Critical Issues for Team Consideration in Learning by Doing is used as a framework to ensure that school leadership teams are strategic in designing and implementing systems of student interventions.  School leadership teams are also provided training in cultural competency and the culture of poverty to enhance their ability to meet the learning needs of at-risk student populations and collectively develop best practices.

 

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

The goal of the SLT program is to develop the school leadership team’s capacity to support their respective schools in making the Cultural Shifts in Learning by Doing.  To this end, school leadership teams are provided tools, routines and leadership practices that enhance their ability to directly empowering teacher teams to focus on results and learning.  This includes a process for developing a school-wide shared vision by clarifying core beliefs and establishing collective commitments.  An aspect of this is the creation and maintenance of norms for all teams at the school.  In addition, training is provided on how to effectively run meetings, develop communication skills and consensus processes, and use protocols for analyzing data and student work.  Again, the Critical Issues for Team Consideration in Learning by Doing is used as a framework to ensure that school leadership teams are strategic in designing and implementing tools and routines that guide the work of teacher teams. 

 

At the conclusion of the 2 year program each school presents evidence of their implementation of PLC concepts.  School leadership teams have indicated that they possess a greater capacity to function as a guiding coalition.  This increased leadership capacity has translated into the consistent use of protocols to analyze student assessment data and inform instructional practices, creation and monitoring of team and classroom SMART goals to guide instructional and curricular decisions, co-planning and co-teaching by grade level and course-alike teams, and implementation of various academic interventions to support student learning.  Schools completing the program have received recognitions for academic achievement including National Blue Ribbon, California Distinguished School, and Title 1 Academic Achievement.  In addition, schools completing the program have exited Program Improvement and state-monitored status.