The Principal's Handbook

Simplifying PLCs
[00:00:00] Welcome to the Principal's Handbook, your go to resource for principals looking to revamp their leadership approach and prioritize self care. I'm Barb Flowers, a certified life coach with eight years of experience as an elementary principal. Tune in each week as we delve into strategies for boosting mental resilience, managing time effectively, and nurturing overall wellness.
From tackling daily challenges to maintaining a healthy work life balance, I'm Barb Flowers. We'll navigate the complexities of school leadership together. Join me in fostering your sense of purpose as a principal and reigniting your passion for the job. Welcome to a podcast where your wellbeing is the top priority.
Welcome everyone to the principles handbook. I'm so excited today because I have some guests with us. I have Bob Sanju, Maren powers and Shaleen Miller. And they're here to talk to us today about their book, Simplifying the Journey, Six Steps to School Wide Collaboration, Consistency and Clarity [00:01:00] in a PLC at Work.
So thank you so much for being here. Great to be here with you. Yeah, thanks for having us. Excited to talk to you. And if each of you just want to, take time to introduce yourself, tell our listeners about yourself and what led to your work with PLC.
Wonderful. Well, my name is Bob Sanju and I'm a career educator. This is all I've known , is education. I've been involved in this work for about 35 years as a teacher. At all levels, high school, middle level, kind of a hybrid intermediate level and, , have had been in administration, district administration.
So really, this is all I've known, and I've also been a consultant, , working with schools around the country for about 15 years and hi, I'm Maren Powers. , I guess I'm the newbie on the block. , I have been teaching, let's see, this is now my eighth year in education. I kind of am in a instructional coach, , role at the moment, and I have been an English teacher prior to that.
I started [00:02:00] working with PLCs really, my first year teaching was in a model PLC school. Ever since I started, I have been in doing this PLC work. , I am also a consultant for Solution Tree too. And I go around and help schools across the country, both at all levels, elementary and high school, and middle school to just help them kind of , further this work and, and help their schools to be more effective.
I'm Shalene Miller. I've been in education for a long time. , I'm just not even going to go there. But anyway, I spent a lot of time in the classroom, , helped develop, , a couple of schools into model PLC schools. , I've worked as a learning coach for a long time and I'm now.
Putting my foot in the door and administration. So I wrote this book through the lens of, , a learning coach teacher. And now I'm able to try to implement, , some of it through the lens of an administrator. I've kind of had both [00:03:00] experiences, so I'm excited to, put my foot in the door and see it through a different lens,
well, that's great. You guys have such a range of experiences. I love that. We have the principal's view, the teacher's view and, an instructional coaches view. That is such a great way to look at PLC's all from a different lens.
Your book is called simplifying the journey. How can principals simplify PLCs to make them more effective and less complicated, because I think sometimes we can get overwhelmed if we've done PLCs for a long time, and maybe they're not going how we want them to go, or they're not as effective as we'd like them to be, and how can we just simplify them, make them less complicated, but make them more effective?
Yeah, it's a great question and and we've learned from experience and I think that's one of the keys in this whole professional learning community model is oftentimes we think of it as a professional perfection community or a professional paperwork community where we just [00:04:00] have to churn out mountains of paperwork.
But the L and PLC, really the focus of that is learning and specifically the learning of the adults in the building. The only way the kids are going to learn more is if we get better at our practices. So, , oftentimes we'll see, we'll see schools that are kind of, , paralysis by analysis. They don't want to move until they have it just right.
And we recognize that, , To answer , these four questions of, of a professional learning community, we're just, they're brilliant in nature, , oftentimes there's a little bit of a misunderstanding on how to answer those. And so the idea behind this,, as we wrote this book was, let's just take these four questions that drive the work of a professional learning community.
And let's just simplify those into very specific actions that schools and teams can take and and how principals can lead that work in a school and then how teachers, of course, engage in that work in their collaborative [00:05:00] teams and so on. So just leading the work from a principal perspective.
There's four keys that we outline in this book, , from a principal perspective, and I think even a team leader perspective from a leadership team perspective. But number one, you have to clarify what the work is. You can't just say go and collaborate or go identify essential standards. Instead, we have to clarify what that work looks like.
Rick Dufour has said it's, it's not the fact that you collaborate, it's what you collaborate about that will impact student learning. And so, The first step in leading this work is just to clarify what that work looks like and be and consistently communicate that. The second step in leading the work is we have to support teachers as they learn together, and that could be through Resources time for them to do the work.
Coaching all of these things to help teachers as they as [00:06:00] they as they engage in this learning together. The third step is to monitor the work. And I want to clarify that monitor does not mean micromanage, but monitor just simply means these things that we're tied on. We've got a we've got to monitor that work.
We've got to. Spend time with teacher teams and look for evidence of this work so we know where teams are strong and where we can provide support for teams as they move forward in their learning. And then the fourth step, and I just think is probably one of the most important steps, is we've got to validate and celebrate when we see it.
And far too often we miss out on this. We're in the in our pursuit of getting it right all the time. We fail to just stop with teachers and validate the work when we see it and celebrate it as a staff and his team. So for four steps in leading this work from a principal perspective. Yeah, clarify what the work is, support teachers as they change, monitor that and then of course validate and [00:07:00] celebrate.
Those are great things to focus on. I love the idea of celebrating. I think that we don't do that enough. In education, we spend so much time focusing on the things that we need to do or we look at everything is like, Oh, what do we still have to do? Or there's so much work and we don't take the time to just think of all the work we've already done and the good things happening in the building.
So I love that. From a teacher's perspective, especially as a team leader. It's the same ideas, just implementing it in a much smaller, , group or setting within your team rather than the entire school. So using those four ways to kind of validate your team mates encourage them and then keep the focus on the right work.
It's the same thing, just in a much smaller setting. And being able to work as a team lead with with principals. I think that's huge too is having the same goals in mind for a principal and then for principals and their team leads and kind of their guiding coalition being able to say, Hey, here's what we are [00:08:00] focusing on.
Here's how I'm going to do it. I also need your guys's support to do this. So I think that is also very helpful for a principal and a team together my addition is going to be, I love the support part. And I think sometimes we just think support is saying rah, rah, rah, rah, and goes back to kind of the celebration.
But in reality, that support is providing PD. it's providing time, it's providing resources, and so we have to really know what we want to focus in on, because we can't do every single thing, all the time. So we need to really focus on it, and again, focus on that learning, learn how to do something.
I like to, compare things to being, to sports. So we need to get some of these practices so that they're, , muscle memory, so that we do them, because they're a part of us, not because we're trying to, just do what the principal wants us to do. And we start out just doing it because the principal asks us to do it.
But if [00:09:00] we continue to work and do and get better at our practices and learn and provide PD and provide that time and that support, it becomes, natural to us. Now, Shaleen, do you, , in the book recommend the coaches actually being part of the PLC or the PLC bringing the resources of this is the PD we need and having that conversation with the principal?
I think you have to look at where your teams are at. And that's one of the biggest things. There are going to be some teams that are going to come to you and know exactly what they need because maybe they're a little bit farther along in the process, but there are going to be some teams that are going to look at and go, I don't know what I'm doing.
And so you're going to have. To hand feed them just a little bit until they get into the process and start going, Oh, okay. I know what you want. I know this. And then they start going in their own directions,, and finding their own way. Yeah, that's good. And just having that support available, I think is so important, you know, for teams to have that there.
And , you're talking about implementing. Small things [00:10:00] over time and making it like muscle memory. And I think that is so crucial, especially when you're doing something like PLC's. And there is so much work that needs to be done. And I think that kind of leads right into the next question. What is the biggest mistake that you see schools making with PLC's when they're trying to implement them?
just my observations. And and these are observations and probably scars too because I've done a lot of these things, right? , but I think, and I mentioned this initially, I think sometimes schools will see, this this PLC process as a program. It's a Program and it's the newest flavor of the month.
, it's a newest initiative. Doug Reeves, , calls it initiative fatigue in schools because we in schools seem to constantly be getting shiny things thrown at us each year. , and so one of the mistakes I think we make is we see it As a program and not a process. It's a process. It's a way of doing business in your school.
And so, , I see that as [00:11:00] one of the mistakes and another mistake. I see is we see it as a checklist of items that we need to complete. , it's not a checklist of items. It's not. Yes, we got our essential standards. We laminated them and we put them on the wall. We did those two years ago. When you hear that language, it's people see that as a it's it's a checklist and it's not the reason we identify essential standards or we give common assessments and look at the data together is to learn together and that's the essence of the professional learning community is we're we're professionals in a school community.
We're learning together. We're learning which practices are influencing student learning we're we're learning which standards are absolutely critical. For students to know and be able to do so seeing this, as a process as a way of doing business as a school and less as an adopted program. I think that's a big mistake that sometimes schools will fall [00:12:00] into.
Yeah, I think you have a good point that if it's not rolled out correctly, and depending on how it is, it does become like, Oh, it's the newest thing. It will pass to teach you and salute themselves from, you know, it's like, Oh, gosh, here's the newest thing, right? It's, it's a way of, it's a way of living.
It's a way of doing business. It's, it's, honestly, Barb, it's the science of our profession. It's research based, best practice in our, in our field. it's supported by research. And so I think it's, it's our professional obligation to follow the science of our profession and just get good at it, learn together.
I think what another big mistake is, when you, think about a PLC, Is to throw everything that you've done out because I think people think, Oh, we're starting. It's kind of like going off of what Bob was saying, it's a program. So now we're going to just start from scratch and start from new.
And in reality, our teachers are awesome. They're [00:13:00] really good. And so if they bring what they have to the table, they will. See that a lot of it fits in with what we're trying to do. And they just need to do these little tiny tweaks, to help put them in just a little bit, a bit of a different trajectory, which makes all the difference in the world for student learning.
And you feel more successful when you're just making tweaks to things that you're already doing starting all the way over. Yeah, that's good. And I just want to add I think the biggest word or one of the biggest words that we kind of focus on throughout the book that would help with, you know, a lot of these things that we see that maybe mistakes different schools are making, but it's just that clarity piece.
So being very clear as a principal, what is expected, and for teachers being able to see clearly what is expected, that clarity between all the pieces in a school. All the people in the school, it, it really would help with a lot [00:14:00] of these things that we see when we do go into these schools, with the program fatigue, and different initiatives, just being able to have that clear purpose, vision, really helps, a lot of our teachers.
Yeah, I think that's a really good point, too, because it kind of goes back to, what Bob was talking about with the four focuses that you have to have that monitoring piece to make sure that things are done with fidelity or how they should be done, because I know over time in my own building.
PLCs can become times to talk about field trips and, other things that they want to do during that time because they have the grade level together and we can easily forget what the purpose is and why we're meeting during that time. Just to add to that goal setting is also something that's very, very, very helpful.
So we have a portion in the book that you can look at it and set some goals for each of the, steps that we go through. It's important to have an actual goal [00:15:00] and then a timeframe to do it instead of just these big broad, Hey, we're going to collaborate. Hey, that's awesome. But what does collaboration look like?
When are you going to collaborate? What are the norms that are going to go into it? So the more clear you can be and the more focused you can be and set some goals. Okay. We want our kids to, reach 80%, proficiency on this somewhere along the way. If we didn't meet that, then we can look back and discover why was it us?
Was it, that we weren't clear enough? Was it that we taught something different than we assessed? So having those goals and, looking at them It helps us as teachers and teens stay on track. I think that's a good point. And I think that's the power , in this book is, it, if there's a kind of overarching theme in this book, it's make it simple and doable.
And I think that's what teachers crave today. [00:16:00] we want to do the right things. And, and oftentimes. We know PLC is the right work, but we just need to make it simple and doable. And so when you think of an overarching theme for the book, that's it. But also each chapter outlines an action step like Shaleen said, and we've recognized, Just through our own schools, as well as coaching other schools that oftentimes we don't clarify what that work looks like.
For example, we talk about in Chapter seven. We talk about collaboration, right? Collaboration. At my school, we We made a compelling case to our faculty why we needed to collaborate. We carved out time in the instructional day for teachers to collaborate. And then we said, go forth and collaborate.
And when we met with our leadership team and got feedback on how collaboration is going, we realized it was a hot mess. And I was like, what's going on? Why is this a hot mess? And they said, Bob, you made a clear and compelling case why we need to collaborate. We have time to collaborate. But nobody ever [00:17:00] articulated what collaboration looks like.
And so as a result, we're kind of all over the place with what we're collaborating about. We've got some that are planning, assemblies and some that are talking about what they had for lunch or those kids that are driving him crazy or whatever. So in chapter seven, we've got a whole chapter devoted to.
Not only what the work looks like when you collaborate, but questions that teams can ask as they prepare for their units of instruction as they implement their units of instruction. And then at the end, they reflect and we've also got questions that leaders can ask of team six questions to really monitor what that work looks like and support teams as they collaborate on the right work.
And I love that you include that piece for monitoring with the administrator, because as a principal, I always feel like I need those questions, to ask teachers and just, just make sure we're on track. Like, I always tell them, you know, it's been difficult when I first started, we had to find a way to carve out time for PLCs because my school doesn't have early [00:18:00] release or anything like that.
I wanted to make sure teachers had a collaboration time that was not their planning time. But when I do that, we're taking away 45 minutes of instructional time when they're meeting, which is fine if they're doing good work during that time. So that's what I always tell them. We're taking away.
This time that you have with kids. So we need to make it as meaningful as possible. So, because if you add that up throughout the year, it's a lot of minutes that they're together. Absolutely. And I want to add, it's a little off topic, but listening to Bob talk reminded me,
The reason behind why we even came up with this system and this book and the idea that we really wanted to put this book out there was because of COVID. And so when COVID hit, and then everything shut down. Our school, we were doing this process through, out the year of COVID and after, and our school really didn't miss a beat.
We were able to keep going, consistently and keep improving our students and, and they were learning. and [00:19:00] so once COVID kind of started to settle down, we all kind of got together and we were like, wait, this is what everyone needs because it's so simple. because after COVID, we all were as educators so overwhelmed by everything that we were trying to deal with, that none of us have ever dealt with before.
So really the idea and the reasoning behind this book, it stemmed at the beginning with COVID and talking about like, we have so much going on, how can we actually simplify our jobs and yet make us very effective? And so that was kind of the reasoning behind, kind of where we started with this book.
So I just wanted to pop that in there as you were talking. No, that's great. And that actually, that goes right into my next question, which is if a school, so let's say a principal's listening to this and a school has not implemented PLCs at all yet, where should they even start? What's the most important thing that they should just start with?
That's a great question. And I don't know that there's an actual like very first step, but [00:20:00] there's some initial steps that I think can happen concurrently. number one, you've got to get real clear on what, what your school's purpose is. Like, why do we exist? You've got to get clear on that.
And in a professional learning community, it's very clear. We want to ensure all students learn at high levels. And that's a lofty goal. There's no question about it, but it became our school's purpose was we're going to work everything we do. Every decision we make, we're gonna work to ensure that all of our students and our teachers learn at high levels.
Once we're clear on a purpose, This shared leadership, which Chalene and Marin were part of that, but this shared leadership is going to be important. So it's not dependent on a principle to implement this, but it's a guiding coalition of influencers in the school that deeply understand the work that are modeling and promoting this work.
And then finally get a framework, get the rails. Regarding what the work looks [00:21:00] like, and these , 6 action steps are just that, we believe they're, they answer the 4 questions of a professional learning community. But these 6 action steps are how we learn together and, so once we get clear on those, what our purpose is, this idea of shared leadership, driving the work , of this process, and then we get the rails,
that's when we work, we dig in and we work and, and I want to make one. Clarification that simple and doable is kind of our mantra, but it's not easy, right? We're just not making the work easy because, you know, Barbara, as well as I do. Education is tough, right? And collaborating together.
These are tough things to do. So it's not. Hey, we're just going to make it easy. It's we're going to simplify this work to six very. Essential action steps that are that are simple and doable. Now let's roll our sleeves up and get good at these things, because these are the things that [00:22:00] influence student learning and teacher efficacy.
As you're talking about, you know, PLCs are you can make them simple, but they're not easy. I think one thing that really struck me is. It really can change the culture of a school. And that is not easy work.
So if you already are in a school and it does not have this culture of collaboration where people are willing to be vulnerable and share with each other. I mean, that's part of the work to write to get everybody to a space where they feel comfortable enough to share. Absolutely. That's that's what I worked a lot with that as the instructional coach.
Full transparency, this isn't like a cure all. It is some super great steps that we can take. But you do have to have that culture. You have to be able to work with your, team. And you, have to be able to go in it with some humility and some, [00:23:00] vulnerability so that you can share , not only your successes, because that's, I know what we want to do.
We want to come in and say, oh my gosh, this is awesome. But we also need to be able to come in and share our failures and come in and go, oh my gosh, train wreck helped me. And that's what's so great about this collaboration. And so great about some of these steps is that it gives us some of those ways to, help when we're feeling.
Like, we don't know what to do, and it helps us learn how to be vulnerable enough to come in and say, these are all our kids, I want everybody to succeed, , can somebody help me with this, and then we all get better because we learn. And I just want to add in our book at the end of each chapter, there's kind of a don't miss this section.
a lot of times in that don't miss this section are ways to maybe help teams that might be struggling with that. Certain step, at the end in our [00:24:00] collaboration chapter, we have a team roadblocks section where it talks about, some ways that maybe there would be team roadblocks. So maybe, teachers who don't get along or just a team of all brand new teachers and how you can move past those roadblocks to better your collaboration.
I also want to point out in the book, as you read, In each step, in the section where it talks about how to actually do the work, a lot of times we have weaved in, especially, and me and Shaleen worked really closely in this part, but where we weaved in, you know, here's some ways to maybe. Help a team if you are seeing that this is a problem.
So for example, gaining shared clarity, amongst the team. If you have a team that doesn't agree on any of the standards that are essential or doesn't agree on what, proficient should look like for you. For their students, there are different techniques and ways that you can implement from the book that will help mitigate a lot of [00:25:00] those things.
So whether it's bringing in an instructional coach, we give different ideas for team leads to be able to kind of guide their team, in a way that takes them out of it. So, throughout our book, we have tried to weave it in. Just the ways that we can help teams, no matter their roadblocks.
Because like you guys were saying, inevitably, collaboration is really difficult. even when you all get along super well, you're gonna disagree on even small pieces. And that's okay. How can we move past those? So, we have really tried throughout the book to be able to address a lot of those situations.
And I will say just from working with teams across the country, a lot of these things have been working with these teams where they start to implement these steps and do them how we say in the book. And then they're like, Oh my gosh, that makes total sense. We get it. I see your point of view, you see mine, and we can move on , from whatever disagreement we were having.
So, there's some really practical [00:26:00] ways. And just like Bob was saying, we're simplifying it. It's not easy, but it is simple where everyone can actually, those actionable steps, they can do them. That's a great resource to have in there to help with that collaboration piece and roadblocks because there will be many roadblocks that come up when it comes to collaboration with PLCs.
Well, is there anything else that you would like to share with the listeners about the book or just PLCs in general that would be helpful?
The 1 thing that I think is extremely important about PLCs is it's not going to happen in 1 year. It's not going to happen in 6 months. It's something that you need to continuously work on, and this is going to be a continuous cycle that you go through year after year after year after year, and that is the learning aspect of the PLC, because every time we repeat or go back and do something within this cycle, we're going to get better at it.
We're going to, make it so that it is very [00:27:00] specific to the students that we have come, you know, that year, right there, in front of us. And so it's a continuous cycle so we're not going to be a super great PLC, like the first year or the second year or the third year, we're going to continue to learn.
And we're just going to get better and better and better each time we do it. I think that's a great point. Cause as a new principal and I was implementing PLCs, I wanted them implemented in one year and you know, that collaboration piece and you're right. It takes so much time. And if you're looking at it, like this is something we will do forever.
We're in it for the long haul. I think that makes it easier to think that we'll just continue to get better each cycle that we do with these PLCs. So that's a great way to look at it. Great wisdom from Maren and Shaleen practitioners in the field.
Our goal shouldn't be to become a PLC. Our goal is to ensure all of our students learn at high levels. And that's our purpose. That's our goal. [00:28:00] How we do that. Are these prep this process this professional learning community process and and specifically the six action steps, couched in collaboration that will help us achieve that.
I actually was just gonna say it's funny because Bob said the word practitioner. I just wanted to point out. I mean, all three of us were in the nitty gritty practitioners.
We've done this work. and I would say, and I will speak for the other two and say all three of us wholeheartedly believe in this process and and would implement it in any school that we were in, because it is. simple, it's doable, and to be able to clearly articulate it as a principal to our, teacher leaders and then to the teachers, it's just such a streamlined process.
I also want to point out too, it doesn't, it's not just the principal, it takes everyone in the school being able to [00:29:00] Get on board and believe in this process and clearly articulate what it is that the principal wants, and how we're going to get there to be able to say, here is how we're actually going to get to, where we want.
And we're going to keep doing it over and over and over again, like Shalene was saying, that's how we can start to move the needle for our students. Cause like Bob said, in the end, it's all about our students actually learning. So like I said, I will speak for the other two and say, we all wholeheartedly believe in this, and we have done it.
We wrote in the introduction, this is written by practitioners for practitioners. We wanted to make it again, simple and doable, so we can get right in, roll our sleeves up and engage in the right work of ensuring all students learning at high level.
Well, thank you so much, Bob, Maren, and Shaleen for being here. I appreciate your time and talking to us about PLCs today. I'm going to put their contact information in the show notes so that people can reach out if they'd like to [00:30:00] get in touch with any of you. And I will also put a link to the book.
Thank you everyone for joining us and thanks for listening to The Principal's Handbook.
Mhm. Mhm.