how they are assessed, and what happens when they struggle are almost entirely a function of their assigned teacher.
Those who hope to lead a high reliability school (HRS) must confront the challenge of reducing this variability so all students have access to good teaching, a guaranteed and viable curriculum, careful monitoring of their learning, systematic interventions when they struggle, and extension when they demonstrate high levels of proficiency. Their best hope for meeting this challenge lies in making the Professional Learning Communities at Work (PLC at Work) process the cornerstone of HRS creation. In doing so, educators will serve the cause of both excellence and equity.
The PLC at Work Process as the Cornerstone of High Reliability Schools
In order for the HRS model to drive a school toward excellence, educators in the school must know that the professional learning community process represents the foundation of their efforts. We recognize that although the term PLC has become ubiquitous, groups apply varying definitions. For our purposes, we want to distinguish among the terms professional learning community, collaborative team, and professional learning community process.
In many schools, educators refer to their collaborative teams as a PLC. We discourage this use of the term. A PLC is a school or district that is attempting to implement the PLC process. Many elements of the process require schoolwide coordination that goes beyond the work of a grade-level or course-specific team. The collaborative team, although not a PLC, is the fundamental structure of a PLC and the engine that drives the PLC process.
The PLC process calls for educators to work together collaboratively in recurring cycles of collective inquiry and action research to achieve better results for the students they serve. It operates under the assumption that purposeful, continuous, job-embedded learning for educators is the key to improved student learning. Before delving into the nuances of PLCs, let’s consider a fundamental prerequisite to any effective school—providing a safe and orderly environment for both student and adult learning.
The Importance of a Safe and Orderly Environment
When Abraham Maslow (1943) created his hierarchy of needs, he cited safety and orderliness as fundamental needs second only to biological needs such as air, water, food, and so on. But he found that although addressing safety needs is vital for progressing to higher levels of self-actualization, it does not ensure that progression. The same is true of classrooms.
Every classroom teacher knows the importance of effective classroom management. Individuals with outstanding content knowledge will flounder as teachers if they cannot maintain a safe and orderly classroom. But effective teachers go beyond classroom management to use strategies that engage learners and constantly monitor their learning. Classroom management is a necessary condition for effective teaching, but it is not sufficient on its own.
This same principle applies to schools. Maintaining a safe and orderly environment is important, but it is not nearly enough. Every school leader must ensure a safe and orderly environment for both student and adult learning. But if school leaders seek to create excellent schools, they must move beyond running a tight ship.
Given the significance of a safe and orderly environment, I find it striking how frequently staff members lack knowledge of specific indicators that could provide insight into how to enhance this important aspect of their school. I ask faculty:
• “How many of you know the number of discipline referrals that were written in your school last year?”
• “How many of you know the number-one cause of discipline referrals in your school?”
• “How many of you know the number of student suspensions that occurred in your school last year?”
• “Is there a time of day, day of the week, or place in the school that discipline problems are most likely to arise?”
• “Do students report feeling safe in your school?”
• “Do students report either being bullied or witnessing bullying in your school?”
In most instances, faculty members cannot answer these questions. If they don’t have a clue about their current reality, they find it difficult to improve on that reality in any coordinated way. Therefore, school leaders should keep information about the school’s environment at the forefront and frequently engage the staff in analyzing the information and identifying potential areas of need and strategies for improvement. One strategy is embracing the three big ideas driving the PLC process.
Assumptions Driving the PLC Process
Three big ideas drive the PLC process (DuFour, DuFour, Eaker, Many, & Mattos, 2016). The extent to which educators consider and embrace these ideas has a significant impact on that process’s outcomes in a district or school. These three big ideas include (1) a focus on learning, (2) a collaborative culture, and (3) a results orientation.
A Focus on Learning
The first and biggest of the big ideas states that a school’s fundamental purpose is to ensure all students acquire the knowledge, skills, and dispositions that will enable them to continue learning beyond the K–12 system. This represents a radical departure from the traditional premise that school’s purpose is merely to give students the opportunity to learn. The mantra of “The teacher’s job is to teach, and the student’s job is to learn” supports this traditional premise. The relevant question for this premise asks, Was the content taught, or was the curriculum covered? If, however, a school’s fundamental purpose is to ensure that teachers do not merely teach students but expect them to learn, the relevant question becomes, Did the student learn? Did the student acquire the intended knowledge, skills, and dispositions of this course, unit, or lesson?
In our work with schools in implementing the PLC process, my colleagues and I have found that we can shift thinking on the purpose of school by addressing the four pillars that serve as the foundation of the PLC process: (1) mission, (2) vision, (3) collective commitments, and (4) goals (DuFour et al., 2016).
1. Mission: Why does the school exist? What is the fundamental purpose of our school? What have we come together to accomplish?
2. Vision: What must we become as a school in order to better fulfill our fundamental purpose? Can we describe the school we hope to become in the next five years? What policies, practices, procedures, and culture align best with a mission of learning for all?
3. Collective commitments: How must we behave? What commitments must we make and honor in order to become the school in our vision so we can better fulfill our fundamental purpose? Do our commitments describe in specific terms the behaviors we should demonstrate today to help move our school forward?
4. Goals: Which steps will we take and when? What targets and timelines will we establish to mark our progress in becoming the school we have described in our vision? How will we know if our collective efforts are making a difference?
Schools often prefer to avoid these foundational questions and get right to the nuts and bolts of the PLC process. Doing so is a mistake. A school will struggle in its PLC implementation efforts if a faculty persists in believing that its job is to teach rather than to help all students learn, and if staff members have no idea where the school wants to go in its improvement efforts. It will struggle if educators refuse to articulate the commitments they hope will characterize their school and if they have no benchmarks to monitor progress. Therefore, we highly recommend that leaders engage the staff in considering the questions posed
