This Year Had to Be Different

This year it was different. Over the summer, toward the end, I set up a two hour meeting with my principal and together we established a few structures that set up the expectation of collaboration with me as a PD Coach. The year prior, my first year, there were few, if any, rules or expectations, and therefore my two-day a week position was not really used to its fullest potential.

With this new initiative of PLCs—where teachers on grade levels are required to work together to better the learning of all students on grade level, not just those in their particular class--
with this new initiative is a “need” for my role. My principal scheduled meeting times with teams and myself. Instant collaboration. There was also a need on the teams to have me work with them: each team needed to learn about PLC's.

Now, building on relationships that I have established already in the past year, and then these new expectations, we are started in a very different place.

I am also facilitating that core group of team members who first attended the DuFour workshop last year. This turnkey group is the key to making this all happen. I am currently reading Strengthening the Heartbeat by Sergviovanni and in it he states the need for change to both be something that bubbles up in a grass roots sort of way, and trickles down from the administration. This "coming at it from both ways" approach is what is making this a success. And, because of this the tone was positive.