Professional Learning Communities (PLC)
A Professional Learning Community, or PLC, is a team approach taken by the Franklin Regional School District that focuses on continuous, never ending improvement in both teaching and learning. Elementary faculty members and support staff collaborate in a number of forums including District Grade Level PLC Teams, Building PLC Teams and Building Grade Level PLC Teams.
PLC time at the District level includes teachers from Heritage, Newlonsburg and Sloan Elementary schools. This collaborative time is used by this larger team of teachers to examine curriculum, discuss instructional pacing, share instructional strategies and resources, and examine performance data on literacy and mathematics common assessments. This practice supports consistency is curriculum, instruction and assessment across buildings.
The Heritage Building PLC team is led by the principal, Dr. Buffone, and is comprised of all faculty and staff in the building. The teaching team collaborates at the start of each year and sets instructional goals based upon PSSA performance data from the prior spring as well as other factors. It is from these Building Goals that the Building Grade Level PLC Teams create their grade level and specific classroom goals for the school year.
Building Grade Level PLC teams meet on a weekly basis. Here teachers use student assessment data to drive decisions about upcoming lesson design and instructional practice. The process may include plans for pre-assessment, differentiated lesson design, creation of flexible student groups, use of common assessments and data collection, supports to enrich or remediate during daily Panther Power time and finally, ways in which the team will use instructional aides or other staff members to support their efforts for the week.
PLC time at the District level includes teachers from Heritage, Newlonsburg and Sloan Elementary schools. This collaborative time is used by this larger team of teachers to examine curriculum, discuss instructional pacing, share instructional strategies and resources, and examine performance data on literacy and mathematics common assessments. This practice supports consistency is curriculum, instruction and assessment across buildings.
The Heritage Building PLC team is led by the principal, Dr. Buffone, and is comprised of all faculty and staff in the building. The teaching team collaborates at the start of each year and sets instructional goals based upon PSSA performance data from the prior spring as well as other factors. It is from these Building Goals that the Building Grade Level PLC Teams create their grade level and specific classroom goals for the school year.
Building Grade Level PLC teams meet on a weekly basis. Here teachers use student assessment data to drive decisions about upcoming lesson design and instructional practice. The process may include plans for pre-assessment, differentiated lesson design, creation of flexible student groups, use of common assessments and data collection, supports to enrich or remediate during daily Panther Power time and finally, ways in which the team will use instructional aides or other staff members to support their efforts for the week.