Boulder Valley School District: Wednesday Professional Learning Time Critical To Strategic Plan Implementation And Student Achievement

Boulder CO

12 September, 2021

9:42 PM

Description

Press release from the Boulder Valley School District: September 10, 2021 "Time is our most valuable commodity," shares Monarch High Principal Neil Anderson. "And without time we can't do the work we want to do to improve student outcomes, growth and success." The Boulder Valley School District launched its new All Together for All Students Strategic Plan in the fall of 2019. With equity at the core of the plan, its outcomes are: creating challenging and relevant educational opportunities, reducing disparities in achievement, and empowering students with the skills necessary for post-graduate success. Moving the needle on these outcomes requires a lot of heavy lifting, especially from the instructional staff. The work did not let up during the pandemic; instead many key initiatives were sped up so they could launch this fall to help support the needs of students after this unexpected year. Read more: Taking steps to close the achievement gap Along with the process to move to an equal school day, came the perfect opportunity to also create a consistent, district wide professional learning time block through a late start on Wednesday. "It's the time that will allow us to accomplish the task of moving the strategic plan forward," says Katie Mills, BVSD Director of Professional Learning. " Without this we just wouldn't have the time needed to do it." Professional Learning Time (or PLT for short) is not meeting time. Instead it is a consistent and planned time for staff to collaborate and center around students and what they need. "This is sacred time within the work day when we come together to focus on student learning," says Barb Aswege, Eldorado K-8 Principal. "It's essential in helping our students grow— whether that's a need for enrichment or an intervention. There are four different categories of PLT that will rotate throughout each month, ensuring that the time is a blend of district initiatives and training, but also school and teacher-led time. "I appreciate that it gives teachers an opportunity to be part of the work, because they have a choice in how we spend some of the Wednesdays," says Aswege. At Eldorado K-8 the goal of the year, and particularly the Wednesday PLT time, is that all staff are using data driven instruction. Throughout the year that work is broken down into several components to hit that goal— unpacking the new academic standards, creating learning targets for students, assessing student growth and understanding, and then using that data to drive instruction. Aswege has taken time at the school's SAC and PTO meetings to engage parents on the work they're doing on Wednesdays and the benefits it will have for students. "How I explain it to parents is that we are taking our standards and we are going through a process to unpack them. It helps to create rigor in the classroom because we see how students should demonstrate their learning in that standard. It helps create that equity in our classrooms because then the students have the same tools to work from and demonstrate learning on the standards. And understanding it at a deep level," says Aswege. At Monarch High, Principal Neil Anderson is using this PLT time to reground after the pandemic and focus on the school's core values and mission. "We knew we needed to come back around and ground ourselves. There's a lot of growth and change that has happened. We need to build time and space to connect with kids and regroup with each other as staff, building relationships, reestablishing connections," Anderson shares. At Monarch the focus this year will be on ensuring a positive culture and relationships and using evidence based instructional practices. Such practices include developing student agency and choice, use of academic and content-based discourse, and student engagement through collaborative group structures. Monarch's focus is on ensuring that students have both the academic content and the academic skills needed to be successful not only this year, but in the years ahead. When matched with strong internal relationships Monarch knows that students will soar. This all ties into moving forward with the Strategic Plan and the success that we want to see in our schools and in each of our students. "I would love to see that we use this time to move ourselves as a school when it comes to instruction and understanding the Strategic Plan, and using data to drive instruction and measures of student learning. That we are supporting all students and that all students feel supported," continues Anderson. Since this is the first year of district PLT, schools and the district professional learning team will continue to engage with teacher and principal focus groups on ensuring that the PLT remains focused on what matters. "It is 100% about student learning. We know this is a big ask for our parents- to shift their schedule. But through this PLT , we are providing time for our educators to focus on growing their practice so that our students are given every opportunity to succeed academically and emotionally. On-going, deep work takes time," shares Mills. This press release was produced by the Boulder Valley School District. The views expressed here are the author's own.