Advertisement Being adopted in Onalaska schools is a model of school culture and organization that actively supports educational change and improvement. The model is called professional leadership communities.
The strategy enhances teachers’ and administrators’ ability to address academic and other issues in a much more cohesive and timely way. According to Burnett, it’s an attitude adjustment, a culture shift and a huge emphasis on use of data. Yet it won’t happen overnight or even in one school year.
Teachers have long been plagued by not having access to student performance data in time to take corrective action in the classroom. For example, the state-required WKCE to evaluate No Child Left Behind goals is taken in November, but teachers don’t get the results back until the school year is just about over.
That leaves no time to change a course of action to help a student learn. Newer tests such as the MAPs testing provides almost instant feedback, allowing teachers to develop alternate strategies for the student to learn the material.
But the teachers are still working independently of one another. Professional learning communities produces an environment where a team of teachers, staff and administrators assess student performance, investigate why a student might not be learning and take action to improve the performance.
There are three major focuses of professional leadership communities: to ensure students learn, create a culture of collaboration amongst the staff and focus on results by regularly monitoring student achievement, make decisions and change course if the student is not learning.
“This puts the ‘all’ back in our mission statement,” Burnett said. “Almost every district has a mission statement that says something like “We are committed to ensuring all students acquire…’ We’re putting the key emphasis on the word all. This is not just about the kids who need special help. It also means we’re looking at what we do with the kids that already know what they need to know. Are we challenging them enough? How do you keep them motivated to continue learning? The core focus is ensuring they truly learn.”
Through professional learning communities, teachers, administrators and staff focus on learning instead of the old philosophy that the teacher teaches, the student learns and the administrator manages. To ensure learning, the entire district staff is buying into the philosophy that a student that walks in the door isn’t the domain of one teacher or another, but the entire district. “It’s an attitude that says, ‘she isn’t my student, she is our student,’” Burnett said.
Administrators and teachers are learning, not just students. And they help each other.
The district is in the process of creating a data warehouse that will allow teachers to easily access student data. Rather than one teacher — say a fourth-grade teacher — trying to make sense of the data, a team that includes, among others, a third-grade teacher, a fifth-grade teacher, a high school teacher and administrative staff will evaluate the data. That allows them all to look at the student with the perspective of knowing where the student has been and where they need to go. But they are all focused on continuous growth for the student.
“There will be challenges and expectations,” Burnett said. “There will be schedule changes and the principals are working on some of that. We have to find time for the teachers to collaborate. It’s a journey, not an easy journey, but certainly one worth taking.”
The G-E-T district also is phasing in the program. Other districts within CESA 4 are considering the program.
Burnett is excited because he sees it as a way of addressing educational needs that prepare students for contributing to society and the economy.
“It used to be that even a student who didn’t achieve academically the way you might have hoped could go out and get a decent paying job. In old jobs, you were not paid to think. That’s not going to work anymore. We continue to hear from the business community the importance of a two- or four-year degree, with math and computer skills and the ability to think.”
Contact Jo Anne Killeen at joanne.killeen@lee.net or (608) 786-6816.
Luther students get early start
Students at Luther High School began their school year Thursday, Aug. 21. Incoming freshman had a short orientation day on Wednesday, then they all went bowling.
According to Principal Paul Wichmann, overall enrollment is at 271, pretty close to last year’s. However, 77 freshman started this year compared to 66 starting last year.
Students learned the school added some new courses: robotics, digital video, modern and world history (honors level) and another social studies for Juniors and seniors: elements of social studies (a combination of sociology, psychology and economics.)
Students and staff can expect to enjoy some time and efficiency savings due to the installation by Technology Director James Mahnke of new computers throughout the buildings. Wichmann said the other systems were showing signs of age, were reaching capacity and were unable to meet increased demand.
Wichmann is hoping to repeat one success from last year. “We had some really phenomenal scores on the ACT. Our composite score was 24.7 on ACT. That isn’t to say there’s not room for improvement, but this was one of the higher points for us last year.”
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