10
IT’S ABOUT TIME
to being designated a Reward School by the Minnesota Department of Education and a Title I School of Distinction. Through the development of What I Need (WIN) time and a focused effort to address cultural changes, the school overcame initial obstacles and continues to improve. In chapter 3, Brian K. Butler demonstrates how an elementary school of approximately five hundred students in Annandale, Virginia, helped ensure high-quality Tier 1 instruction for all students through job-embedded professional development. This chapter gives very detailed, specific information about how the capacity of individual teachers, as well as collaborative teacher teams, was enhanced through multiple learning activities and highly targeted professional development. In chapter 4, John Wink explains how interventions in a rural Texas elementary school have become as easy as 1-2-3. Teacher teams employ this focused process to help them collaborate around the most important topics that impact learning. While the school’s PLC process serves as a vehicle to design high-quality instruction and assessments, the 1-2-3 process serves as the litmus test to ensure that the beginning of the response to intervention (RTI) process is implemented with fidelity. In chapter 5, Susan B. Huff describes the good-to-great journey of Spanish Oaks, a suburban Utah elementary school with 35 percent of its students receiving free or reduced lunch. She explains how first building a strong PLC foundation helped the school create a system of timely interventions for students at the same time that budgets were cut to the bone. In chapter 6, Lillie G. Jessie speaks to the incredibly important role of the principal in ensuring high levels of learning for all students. In doing so, she describes the journey of Elizabeth Vaughan Elementary School, a high-minority, highly diverse, Title I school in Woodbridge, Virginia, and how she, as principal, helped provide the structural and emotional support to her teachers and students that led to the development of a schoolwide system of tiered interventions. In chapter 7, Merrilou Harrison explains how she, as principal of Gilbert Elementary in Yakima, Washington, faced significant challenges. This low-performing urban school enrolled 525 students, which included a high percentage of at-risk youth. This urban school was 61 percent minority students, 75 percent students of poverty, 22 percent special education students, and 25 percent English learners (ELs). Merrilou led her staff in building a PLC to ensure all students received the time and support necessary to succeed. The school is featured on the All Things PLC website (www.allthingsplc.info) as an exemplary PLC school. In chapter 8, Maria Nielsen gives specific tools and tips on how she helped build a system of powerful Tier 2 interventions at Millville Elementary School in Utah. The school has garnered numerous awards, including Reward School status from the