Introduction
3
In general, professional learning communities (PLCs) provide a structure for teachers and administrators to engage in a continuous improvement process to get results. PLCs give teachers an opportunity to focus on student work and to plan instruction based on student performance. PLCs are not simply extra meetings to attend but are an ongoing arrangement that allows teachers to engage with colleagues about students and their learning. Members of a PLC share a vision about their work, learn collaboratively with one another, visit and review other classrooms, and participate in decision making as it relates to teaching and learning. There are a number of teams necessary to ensure that RTI is effective. In schools that operate as professional learning communities, subgroups meet as teams to accomplish specific tasks. It is very common to have grade-level teams or departments work together to align curriculum and instruction. In addition, in schools that have adopted RTI, there is often a team that focuses on the overall implementation of the model, coordinating professional development for teachers and system-level implementation of interventions. There is also often an assessment team that selects screening and progress-monitoring tools and reviews assessment results, especially for students whose learning problems are difficult to figure out. Some schools also have a student study team, a group of teachers who meet to make recommendations for instruction and intervention for students experiencing difficulty. Student study teams predate most RTI efforts and typically function in support of the overall PLC teams. Membership on these various teams depends on the school but always includes regular classroom teachers as well as specialists who provide additional information to the team. From a PLC perspective, we can consider how the three tiers of RTI operate to inform policies, professional development, and continuous improvement. The system goal for Tier 1, core instruction, is that at least 70 percent of the students will reach expected performance levels. For English learners, this goal means that they gain, at minimum, a year of English proficiency for each year they are in school. It also means that they are making progress on state assessments. When 70 percent of the students do not reach the expected performance levels, the school or district PLC should focus on improving the quality of the core instruction. We focus on Tier 1, core instruction, in chapter 2. School- or district-level PLC teams are crucial to the design of Tier 2 supplemental interventions for students in need. For English learners, Tier 2 interventions often focus on the English language, from phonemes and graphemes to vocabulary, pronunciation, and grammar. Members of PLC teams share effective practices with one another and can also examine student work collaboratively to make decisions about program effectiveness. We focus on Tier 2, supplemental intervention, in chapter 3.