Wednesday PLC Meetings

Dear Parents,

In the spring of 2009, the Wake County School Board made an important decision: every school would extend its instructional day by 10 minutes on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays, and every school would let out one hour early on Wednesdays. This decision was not without controversy. Many parents expressed concerns about child care on Wednesdays, and about the supervision of students at after-school activities (such as sporting events or clubs) on Wednesdays.

I recognize that a decision of this magnitude creates complications for families, and I appreciate parents’ concerns. Nevertheless, I believe that this decision represents a real commitment on the part of the School Board to improving the quality of teaching and learning district-wide.

One of the greatest challenges to improvement in K-12 education is the teacher isolation inherent in the system. Traditionally, teachers have been individually responsible for deciding what to teach in their classrooms, and how to teach it. While we have incredibly talented, dedicated, and knowledgeable teachers working at Lufkin and in Wake County , this system of isolation ignores one of the most important lessons that the business world has learned over the past 50 years: teamwork produces better results than isolation.  

In Wake County , we have focused on breaking free from the traditional model of isolation by organizing teachers into collaborative teams. These teams then work together to identify essential curriculum, design high-quality lessons, create common assessments, and respond to students’ individual needs.

The biggest challenge, however, is time. It is incredibly difficult to design a school schedule that creates the necessary time for teachers to meet and collaborate, and this has served as a real barrier to collaborative efforts in schools across the country. By deciding that every school in Wake County will have an hour each week for teachers to come together and work in collaborative teams, the School Board has made a powerful commitment to helping improve the quality of teachers’ work and students’ achievement.

At Lufkin , we are committed to using PLC Wednesdays to improve the quality of your children’s education. We also believe that we have a responsibility to keep you informed about how we are using this valuable time. Therefore, in this section of our Website, we will regularly post updates on our work from PLC Wednesdays. This will include examples of action plans created by PLC teams, the minutes from team meetings, common assessments developed by our teachers, and intervention plans designed to support and extend student learning.

PLC Wednesdays are a major undertaking on the part of our district, and a significant time commitment on the part of parents and teachers. When you are in the building—whether it is for an Open House, a parent-teacher conference, to volunteer, or just to join your child for lunch—please ask us about our PLC work and how it is helping us better serve you and your children.

Dr. Graham