Vol. 19, No. 2 - Winter 2003

Urban Leadership Academy

“At the heart of what teaching is all about”

Barb Wilson, principal of Oakdale Elementary School in the North St. Paul School District, was pretty sure her staff would love the idea of professional learning communities (PLCs). PLCs emphasize collaboration, inclusiveness, and kid-centered expectations—all concepts dear to educators’ hearts.

But it wasn’t until Wilson sent five or six staff members to the college’s Urban Leadership Academy workshop with well-known PLC practitioner Rick DuFour that the idea came to life.

“The staff members came back from the workshop so enthused,” recalls Wilson, who is in the third year of implementing aspects of the model at her elementary school. “They said, ‘Oh, now we get it! We see what you’re saying!’ I think this model really appeals to the heart of what teaching is all about, and teachers really do get
excited about it.”

PLCs are one of the most talked-about new models in education. A PLC provides a framework to ask three questions: What do we want kids to know, how do we know if they succeed, and what do we do if they don’t succeed? School districts, schools, or even smaller educator groups are encouraged to collaboratively set goals, analyze data, and come up with plans that ensure no student gets left behind.

Thanks in part to a strong partnership with the University of Minnesota, metro area school districts such as North St. Paul have been able to embrace the PLC model with consistent, research-backed expertise. North St. Paul is one of four partner school districts participating in the Urban Leadership Academy, an ongoing professional development program (previously called the Urban Principal Leadership Program) offered through the college’s office of Continuing Professional Studies and Department of Educational Policy and Administration.

The Urban Leadership Academy provides a forum for school leaders to increase their knowledge and skills through interacting with each other and working with speakers such as DuFour, who has presented at Urban Leadership Academy seminars and workshops twice in the past few years. He is an Illinois superintendent, consultant, author, and a visible proponent in the effective schools movement.

Leslie Steinhouse, former North St. Paul assistant superintendent who instigated the school district’s adoption of the PLC model before moving to Wisconsin as a superintendent, says inclusion of principals and teacher leaders at professional development events is important.

So is allowing schools to determine their own focus, she says, an inherent feature of the PLC model, as well as acknowledging what schools and teachers are already doing right. Too often, teachers are blamed for a student’s poor performance. With the PLC model, a variety of interventions are put into place, taking the pressure off individual teachers, Steinhouse says.

Joe Wemette, director of teaching and learning at North St. Paul, says PLCs also work well in the context of the Bush administration’s recent emphasis on standards and testing.

“Part of the strength of the PLC notion is collective accountability, and the need to collaborate,” says Wemette, who believes teachers pride themselves on being learners and appreciate the chance to continue their education beyond licensure requirements. “The [federal] No Child Left Behind Act is certainly before us, so PLCs help us embrace what we have to look at anyway in a positive manner.”

So far, about 100 of the about 850 educators at the North St. Paul School District have received some kind of training in PLCs, Wemette says. The district wrote and received a best practices grant from the Minnesota Department of Children, Families & Learning last year, and that, along with other initiatives such as a two-day scheduled visit by Rick DuFour next fall, will allow North St. Paul to pursue further integration of PLC practices.

“I’ve been in this school district 19 years, and I have to say, this is the most excited I’ve ever seen our teachers,” says Ellen Delaney (M.Ed., ’90, math education), staff developer. “I hope using the PLC model becomes the way we do our work.”

Carole Erickson, Skyview Elementary principal, agrees. “I’m a little surprised at the enthusiasm generated by our leadership team (who went to the Urban Leadership Academy workshop with Rick DuFour),” said Erickson, adding she believes that the PLC concept of meeting the needs of all kids is what’s so motivating. “They took the idea and ran with it.”

—Suzanne Miric