AllThingsPLC Magazine Volume 7, Issue 2

PLC things

PLC things all

First Thing

as Driving Forces in a PLC

Compassion and Service

Jack Baldermann

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SOLUTION TREE: CEO

Jeffrey C. Jones

PRESIDENT

Themost important thing we can teach our students is to be compassionate people who give service to others. What does this have to do with professional learning community work? Everything.

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Edmund M. Ackerman

SOLUTION TREE PRESS: PRESIDENT & PUBLISHER

Douglas M. Rife

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ART DIRECTOR

Rian Anderson

PAGE DESIGNERS

Laura Cox, Abigail Bowen, Kelsey Hergül, Fabiana Cochran, Julie Csizmadia, Rian Anderson

Making a commitment in our work to compassion and service is not only the right thing to do, but I am also con dent that peak performance in a PLC can only be obtained if this commitment is central to the work and is an explicit focus in all we do. For students and teachers to fully engage in their work, they must believe that what they are doing has great purpose and is noble. If you want exceptional results, start by centering the work in compassion and service to others.

When we are a cohesive and compassionate team deeply committed to respecting and serving others, there will be no stopping us on our path to great achievement. ere are opportunities every day to make decisions rooted in compassion. It is in the everyday interactions that we build and sustain a culture of compassion that leads to people becoming more dedicated to each other, the mission, and the work. We dig a little deeper, persevere longer, are more open to being vulnerable and supportive, and commit to follow-through in a more concentrated way.

AllThingsPLC (ISSN 2476-2571 [print], 2476-258X [Online]) is published four times a year by Solution Tree Press.

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Dr. Helen Riess (2018), an associate professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and director of Empathy and Relational Science at Massachusetts General Hospital, states: “Consciously or not, we are in constant, neural resonance with one another’s feelings. When we are engaged in shared mind awareness, the possibilities for mutual aid and collaborative problem solving abound” (p. 30). Clearly the connection between compassion and e ective collaboration is being made, and the team that is more connected is better able to create solutions and foster growth. Is this not at the heart of PLC work?

Dr. Riess (2018) also argues that one of the byproducts of compassion is that “helping others . . . also inspires others to help in return. Helping others feels good. is is considered the basis for collaboration, cooperation, and reciprocity in human relationships” (p. 18).

Monitoring Goals

How can a team monitor progress on end-of-year goals?

See if this scenario sounds familiar: a team writes a SMART goal and turns it in to the principal, who dutifully checks it o the list and les it away on the shelf. Using this kind of “share and shelve” approach to goal setting dramatically reduces the likelihood of meaningful progress on the goal. Goals have little e ect on improving teaching and learning unless leaders monitor and measure progress toward the goal on an ongoing basis.

e most e ective way to monitor progress on end-of-year goals is to turn them into during-the-year goals and monitor them on a regular and routine

basis throughout the school year. Too many times, districts, schools, or teams write SMART goals but fail to look at them again until the end of the year. At that point, it’s too late to do anything about them.

A good time to check on progress toward a goal is right after a team reviews the results of a common assessment. Teams in Kildeer Countryside School District 96 followed a simple process to create a short-term SMART goal for each unit that was linked to their yearlong SMART goal. e short-term SMART goal created milestones along the way to measure and monitor progress toward the goal.

Have a question about PLCs? Check out Solution Tree’s e ort to collect and answer all of your questions in one great book: Concise Answers to Frequently Asked Questions About Professional Learning Communities at Work™ by Mike Mattos, Richard DuFour, Rebecca DuFour, Robert Eaker, and Thomas W. Many. This question and answer are in chapter 1, “Laying the Foundation: Mission, Vision, Values, and Goals.”

District Improvement School A New Era in &

The Critical Role of the Superintendent and School Board

Gone are the days when school boards had little or nothing to do with student learning or when district-level plans focused on scal health and building maintenance with no mention of student achievement. Demands on superintendents and school boards have never been greater. ey have been pushed to create policies and practices surrounding educational equity and put the systems in place to ensure the work is accomplished on behalf

of all students. ey are being routinely called on to analyze data aligned to board and district goals as school board members ask, “Are the kids learning, and how do we know?” ey are working with district leaders to advance education research and eliminate teacher isolation and classroom practices that aren’t yielding results. ey are also expected to act with urgency to ensure that every student is given what they need when needed.

Janel Keating and Meagan Rhoades

Even with the increased attention, more needs to be done to recognize the importance of this in uential team and its responsibility for improving student achievement for all. Although the knowledge base for what makes good district leadership is expanding, the information is sparse on precisely what the work of the superintendent and school board should look like in a high-functioning school district.

Robert Eaker, Mike Hagadone, Janel Keating, and Meagan Rhoades (2021) point out, “E ective top-down district leadership can have a tremendous e ect on the quality of the bottomup work of school teams. It is unrealistic to think that teams throughout a district will be able to function at a high level if the school board and superintendent team is not functioning at a high level to develop a strong PLC foundation—the district mission, vision, values (shared commitments), and goals; embed a collaborative culture throughout the district; and create a commitment to a data-driven, research-based culture at every level within the district” (p. 13). It only makes sense that the more a superintendent and school board understand the systems in place to support student learning at the school and team levels, as well as understanding the PLC process, the more positively they will support the decisions being made and, in fact, work to create alignment and reciprocal accountability starting at the district level.

e school board and superintendent should be the most effective team in the district. e superintendent is responsible for developing, educating, and supporting this team. White River School District Board President Denise Vogel shares, “As a board, we strive to function as a high-performing team working alongside the superintendent on the same goals as every other team in the district—ensuring high levels of learning for all our students. Our daily tasks might look di erent, but the goal is the same.”

We’re in a new era in district and school improvement. Rick DuFour (2015) said, “ e journey will undoubtedly be hard work. But if there is one undeniable reality for every educator every year, it is that we are going to work hard. e real question is this: Will we work hard and succeed or work hard and fail?” (p. 252). e most productive path is for the superintendent and school board to function as a high-performing collaborative team. Importantly, the work of the school board and superintendent team is grounded in some basic assumptions.

Assumption #1: Educate the Board

e traditional school board in the United States consists of a group of elected folks who may or may not have had any prior experience with the work of a school district. e work of the school board and superintendent team involves educating the board so members understand the concepts, practices, and vocabulary of a PLC at Work—and the expectations and requirements of teams districtwide within the PLC process. We cannot overemphasize the importance of superintendents and district leaders taking time to educate school board members.

Arkansas Board Development Director Tammie Reitenger shares, “Arkansas School Board’s mission promotes studentfocused leadership, and ensuring that board members have the understanding and knowledge in best practices to promote student achievement is a critical step toward success in the classroom. Including board members in the training sends a strong message that this isn’t only a teaching program but the way the district does business. Excellence in the boardroom leads to excellence in the classroom.” Arkansas is divided into 14 educational regions. During the fall of 2022, all regions had a practitioner provide training in the PLC process.

is meeting was the rst time some board members had heard or received information about PLCs, and the feedback was very positive.

Vogel agrees, “In order to understand the work of the other teams in the district, it’s important for the board to build shared knowledge about the PLC process and have a practical working knowledge of what the teams are doing. One way to do this is to immerse ourselves in the same training that our teams attend. We try to ensure that all board members attend a PLC Institute every couple of years. We can also structure our meetings and agendas in a way that highlights student learning and provides the opportunity to analyze student learning data aligned with our board and district goals. We also spend time engaging with the teams and observing the products of the teams that are layered under the four critical questions of learning. is helps keep us all focused on the reason we exist as a superintendent and board team: doing what’s best for kids to help them learn at high levels.”

To build shared knowledge at the board level, White River School District committed to using one of the two monthly board meetings for learning about the concepts and practices of a PLC. During this meeting, we invited grade-level and content-area teams from our schools to share their essential standards, common formative assessments, processes to analyze data, and ways to add time, support, and extensions linked to their formative assessment data. e school board and superintendent team also had the opportunity to view team products. rough these meetings, board members built shared knowledge and a common vocabulary. It’s important to note that school board meetings are open to the public so individual student names and other identifying information were always redacted when looking at data.

Members of the school board and superintendent team also attended collaborative teacher team meetings as observers, watched videos of White River teams doing collaborative work, and engaged in a number of book studies. You would

also nd board members seated next to sta during districtwide professional development opportunities, included in meetings about the response to intervention process, and involved in the administrative retreat.

Eaker et al. (2021) contend if the board is educated and has a deep understanding of the why, what, and how involved in advancing the mission of the district, student learning will dramatically increase—not to mention the superintendent will experience longevity in the position.

Assumption #2: Focus on the Why

Eaker et al. (2021) highlight, “From the school board and the superintendent down to the teacher teams, it is important to start with the why. Typically, educators will not oppose change if they understand why the change is so critically important. As Anthony Muhammad and Luis F. Cruz (2019) point out, ‘A leader has to create a compelling, fact-based case for change, and then use his or her ability to convince people to make the organizational challenge their personal challenge’ (p. 25)” (pp. 14–15).

In White River School District, we posited that to create system change, to ensure equity across our district, we had to create an aligned system where every person in every position played a part in supporting the district mission.

Simon Sinek (2009) says, “For values or guiding principles to be truly e ective they have to be verbs. It’s not ‘integrity,’ it’s ‘always do the right thing.’ It’s not ‘innovation,’ it’s ‘look at the problem from a di erent angle.’ Articulating our values as verbs gives us a clear idea—we have a clear idea of how to act in every situation” (p. 67).

In White River School District, our mission is ensuring high levels of learning for each student and preparing them for success after high school. Ensure is a big verb—it requires alignment to the mission from every role. As we have said, hope is not a plan. We need to do more than just hope that each student achieves.

If the superintendent and school board are committed to improving learning, they must focus on implementing PLC at Work concepts and practices. Why? Because by doing this work we can improve adult professional practice and student achievement levels at every school, on every team, and in every classroom, as measured by multiple indicators, including:

• Grades

• Attendance

• State assessment results

• Student growth data

• Graduation rates

• Enrollment and completion of postsecondary education

• Dual credits earned

• Increased enrollment in AP courses and increased AP courses being o ered for successful student completion of a more rigorous and challenging curriculum

• ACT and SAT results

• Positive behavior interventions and support (PBIS) and multitiered systems of support (MTSS) data

• Special education data

• Historically underserved student data

At the end of the day, why should leaders work so hard to align the work of every team, every day? e answer is clear: to improve Tier 1 instruction to ensure high levels of learning for all students—grade by grade, course by course, subject by subject, unit by unit, lesson by lesson, skill by skill, and name by name, and to improve the professional practice of every adult in the district.

Assumption #3: Engage in Collaborative Teaming

In e Culture Code: e Secrets of Highly Successful Groups, Daniel Coyle (2018) shares his research into widely varied successful groups. He summarizes the three basic requirements that tap into the power of our social brains to create powerful working interactions. He states, “Skill 1—Build Safety—explores how signals of connection generate bonds of belonging and identity. Skill 2—Share Vulnerability—explains how habits of mutual risk drive trusting cooperation. Skill 3—Establish Purpose—tells how narratives create shared goals and values.

e skills work from the bottom up, rst building group connections and then channeling it into action” (p. xix).

In other words, building successful collaborative teams is more than just putting people into a group. We just talked about focusing on the why, or establishing purpose. Our purpose isn’t siloed based on grade level, content area, school, or department. We share a universal purpose.

Eaker et al. (2021) share, “ e school board and superintendent team realized that engaging educators to work in collaborative teams was truly the best hope for signi cantly improving learning across the district. In the White River School District, the school board and superintendent team aligned the work of teams under the four critical questions of learning that are central to the PLC at Work process” (p. 16).

As Learning by Doing (DuFour et al., 2016) reminds us, “ e very reason any organization is established is to bring people together in an organized way to achieve a collective purpose that cannot be accomplished by working alone” (p. 75). Building that shared purpose in your school board and superintendent team is critical. A board and superintendent that deeply understand the PLC process will implement policies that support that work and align the budget to allow for innovation supported by data. Creating a collaborative team at the superintendent and board level requires time and deliberate work. But we would contend that it’s the most important work that can happen.

®

Where learning THRIVES

2023 PLC AT WORK® INSTITUTES

May 31–June 2

Oklahoma City, Oklahoma

July 26–28

Fort Smith, Arkansas

August 22–24 SOLD OUT

Idaho Falls, Idaho

August 29–31SOLD OUT Coeur d’Alene, Idaho

September 7–8

Honolulu, Hawaii

September 26–28

Pasadena, California

October 2–4

Des Moines, Iowa

October 9–11

Cheyenne, Wyoming

“After several months of research and dialogue with practitioners throughout the nation, it became apparent that the hype was real. PLCs . . . are being used by schools and districts of all sizes and demographics to make signi cant impacts on student achievement.”

Evaluating Professional Learning Communities: Final Report An APQC® Education Benchmarking Project

October 16–18

Salt Lake City, Utah

November 6–8

San Antonio, Texas

November 29–December 1

Kansas City, Missouri

“The information was given in a user–friendly way. I came away with a complete understanding of not only how to be a part of a PLC but also the why and the history behind the why.”

—Michael LaFrenz, teacher, Monroe Elementary, Iowa

“I think the most valuable aspect of this conference is that we left excited and engaged to continue doing what we do in the BEST way possible through the PLC process.”

—Darci Lynn Thompson, teacher, Johnston Community Schools, Iowa

When your goal is sustained, substantive school improvement where all students learn at high levels, join us for a three–day PLC at Work® Institute. Learn, ask the experts, re ect with teams, and seek advice from those who have successfully implemented the process.

THE RECOMMENDER

Kristen Bordonaro

Special Education in a PLC

Teams everywhere are asking, “What are the best resources for special education, and where can we nd out more?” While there are some easy answers to this, there is also some complexity in determining “great” resources for special education due to the fact that the student need quickly varies, as do the team dynamics. However, the two most important pieces in planning for success around special education within a professional learning community are: (1) ensuring that true collaboration is happening with all members of the student’s team and (2) continually assessing for rigor in the student’s educational plan. Following are some of my favorite resources that address collaboration and rigor.

Yes We Can!: General and Special Educators Collaborating in a Professional Learning Community by Heather

Julie A. Schmidt, and Jeanne Spiller

Friziellie,

Learning by Doing (Richard DuFour, Rebecca DuFour, Robert Eaker, Thomas W. Many, & Mike Mattos, 2016) is often considered the backbone of PLC work. Within special education, Yes We Can! serves as our foundation. This book takes us through not only the history of special education but also the hard realities faced by those serving within special education. It then goes through some of the fundamentals necessary to create structures to support collaboration for all students and to have shared learning expectations. We also learn what is most important to understand, what all students should learn, and how to embrace standards-aligned instruction, including for students who receive services. Each chapter in the book gives clear examples and steps to ensure we are planning for the highest levels of success for all students.

Doable Di erentiation: 12 Strategies to Meet the Needs of All Learners

by Jane A. G. Kise

This is quickly becoming one of my favorite go-to books for both special education teams and general education teams. We all know the importance of creating a learning environment that is di erentiated to meet the individual needs of our students, but sometimes the “how” of doing this can seem overwhelming, and many times we don’t know where to start. Here is where Doable Di erentiation is a must-have for all educators; it provides immediate starting points for us. The book is broken down into three sections: The Foundation, The Strategies,

and Lesson Planning. One of the things I like most is that the book can be read cover to cover or utilized for specific topics. Throughout the sections, teams can find strategies that are not only practical but also easily implemented the following day in the classroom.

Deconstructing Depth of Knowledge: A Method and Model for Deeper Teaching and Learning by Erik M. Francis

I have been challenging special education and general education teams to really examine their instruction and focus on the complexity we ask students to demonstrate and how we intentionally deliver deeper teaching practices to our students receiving support. Special education teams are great at writing measurable IEP goals for students, and many times the focus for professional development is around IEP goals and the legal areas of an IEP. However, one area that our teams should receive more professional development in is understanding how to include more rigor and grade-appropriate content within their instruction. In Deconstructing Depth of Knowledge, there are so many powerful tools to distinguish the performance expectations and cognitive demands around instruction. Throughout this book, we find concrete examples of how we can break down and reconstruct our learning targets, ask deeper questions, and provide academically rigorous learning experiences for our students, especially within the field of special education.

KRISTEN BORDONARO is a special education administrator in the Chicagoland area. She has worked within the field of special education for the last 15 years.

NO MATTER HOW GOOD anideamightsound, practitionerswanttoknow,“Yes,butdoesitwork? Canitpositivelyaffectmyclassroom,myinstructional practice?”

Teachersandprincipalsoftencollect storiesfromotherschools,butscholarlyresearch alsocontributestounderstandingwhatmakesPLCs effective. Thiscolumnwillintroduceyoubrieflyto contemporaryresearchaboutPLCsinpractice. Sharethissynopsiswithcolleaguesandpolicymakers who wonder how to make PLCs work more effectively, anddigdeepertolearnmoreonyourown.

WORK MORE EVIDENCE THAT PLCS

Heather K. Dillard

The Study

Torres, K., Rooney, K., Holmgren, M., Young, S. Y., Taylor, S., & Hanson, H. (2020). PLC at Work in Arkansas: Driving achievement results through school transformation and innovation. Portland, OR: Education Northwest.

In March 2017, the 91st General Assembly of the State of Arkansas passed a bill to provide both funding and training for the implementation of professional learning communities at all levels of preK–12 schools and teacher preparation programs throughout the state. Arkansas’s Division of Elementary and Secondary Education partnered with Solution Tree to begin the incremental process of systematically training cohorts of schools and districts in the 2017–18 academic year. To date, there have been a total of 6 cohorts composed of 66 schools and 11 districts selected for training and implementation. is article provides details generated by a third-party research rm hired to conduct an external evaluation of Arkansas’s PLC at Work model.

Education Northwest worked with Solution Tree to design a logic model to show how schools making progress on the PLC at Work process will increase interest in and capacity to do the work. Improved instructional practice occurs, causing an increase in student engagement, which helps drive continuous stu-

dent achievement. With this logic model in mind, evaluation methods were developed to test the 10 schools and 1 district in Arkansas’s rst PLC cohort group. ese schools were studied in the rst three years of implementation, from 2017 to 2020. Data sources included multiple surveys, 22 interviews, 20 focus groups, training documents, school documents, and school and student data.

The Findings

Four key ndings from this longitudinal study were discussed in this article.

1. “Students in PLC at Work Cohort 1 schools showed improved academic achievement and higher levels of engagement” (p. 2).

Due to inconsistencies with state testing during COVID-19, the 2019–20 school year provided no data for this study. Regardless, schools in the PLC cohort saw a positive impact in student achievement during their second year of implementation. Measured growth was indicated on the ACT Aspire math and English language arts test. is included positive

Research Report

impacts on students eligible for free or reduced-price lunch. Additional ndings across the three years showed a decrease in students needing to attend summer school, increased student attendance, decreased behavioral referrals, and fewer special education referrals. Most importantly, an increase in student ownership of learning was witnessed as students increased in their desire to redo work and participate in interventions.

2. “All PLC at Work Cohort 1 schools reported positive changes in instructional practices, which led to improved learning opportunities for students” (p. 2).

Within each cohort school, schoolwide systems were created that allowed educators to focus on essential standards; prociency, assessment, and instruction of the standards; alignment of the standards across grade levels; and additional support and feedback through exible student groups and schoolwide systems of interventions. Collectively, these practices contribute to the academic achievements of their students.

3. “Educators in PLC at Work Cohort 1 schools improved their culture of collaboration and collective responsibility for ensuring all students learn at high levels” (p. 2).

Across each school studied, all educators witnessed growth in their communications, trust, collective responsibility, and e cacy for student learning. Team members expressed that their group members were good communicators that could be trusted. is trust level came as a result of their collaborative time with colleagues and administrators who were collectively responsible for ensuring all students learn, not just their own.

4. “All PLC at Work Cohort 1 schools received substantial support from school leaders and Solution Tree associates and were able to fully implement the program” (p. 2).

From the onset of implementation, each school received support to establish the foundational elements of a PLC at Work. Administrators created time for teams to meet weekly and established a guiding coalition of individuals to help fully implement all aspects of the PLC at Work model. Solution Tree associates provided direct support to each school with open lines of communication, di erentiated support to t their unique needs, and hands-on training. In all, schools received over 40 days of training and/or coaching each year so that they were able to implement the PLC at Work model with delity.

Implications for PLCs

In qualitative research, the term saturation is used to indicate that further data collection is unnecessary based on the amount of data previously collected. e study produced by

Education Northwest serves as yet another set of data in an overly saturated pool of evidence to support the merits of PLCs. eir ndings provide a description for how to fully implement the PLCs at Work model. is report does not deviate from what is recorded in the PLC at Work literature. In order to see student gains, schools must ensure the model is fully operational. ere is no element that can be overlooked, nor should any be altered.

Professional Learning Communities at Work are composed of collaborative teams functioning in “both a top-down and bottom-up cyclical process” (Eaker, Keating, Hagadone, & Rhoades, 2021, p. 8). Every employee of the school system is a member of a team that models the same behaviors of e ective high-performing collaborative teams. Within the school board and superintendent team, district leadership team, building leadership team, and teacher teams, the same information should ow. With teacher teams sharing student “learning data, coupled with feedback and need requests” (Eaker et al., 2021, p. 9), administrative teams at all levels should respond to the data and the suggestions of the teachers and administrators to address student needs.

By aligning six critically important assumptions, schools and districts can create high-performing PLCs. In the book

Leading PLCs at Work Districtwide: From Boardroom to Classroom (Eaker et al., 2021), a precise and sequential series of actions is detailed. ese collaborative actions assume:

1. Superintendent leadership matters—a lot!

2. Leaders connect to the why.

3. Clarity precedes competence.

4. Teamwork is aligned within a simultaneous loose and tight culture.

5. Leaders support teams through reciprocal accountability.

6. Leaders monitor and celebrate the work of teams.

Any school considering beginning the PLC at Work process has no reason to ounder. e steps for developing the model are clearly laid out in the PLC literature. Schools have no reason to question whether the process will work in their setting. It will work. e time to begin is now. Get started and get better along the way.

References

Eaker, R., Keating, J., Hagadone, M., & Rhoades, M. (2021). Leading PLCs at Work districtwide: From boardroom to classroom. Bloomington, IN: Solution Tree Press.

HEATHER K. DILLARD, associate professor at Middle Tennessee State University, teaches the Schools as Professional Learning Communities course in the Assessment, Learning, and School Improvement Doctoral Program.

Why I Love PLCs Let Me Count the Ways!

BY ERIC ATUAHENE

I have had the pleasure and privilege of leading PLC work at two di erent schools in the Littleton Elementary School District located in Avondale, Arizona. e work has given me an exponential amount of ful llment and gratitude and has been life changing, both professionally and personally. I could not imagine going about the work of schools in any other way.

I love PLCs because of the transition we made as a school to embrace learning for all. It is powerful to witness everyone being a learner, from students to sta members. Student learning became the focal point of all interactions and decisions among staff, and I heard staff refer to students by name, not solely by number or percentage. I observed discussions around ways to meet the needs of students to grow them academically and emotionally. I saw teachers leveraging the resources they had to make a di erence in students’ lives. We became laser-focused on what was best for our kids and were driven to not let anything stop us. We truly took on an “all things are possible” and “no excuses” attitude as learners.

Sta recognized that the students were not the only ones who had an opportunity to develop. We embraced the mentality that it was our professional and moral obligation to learn. By doing this, we were able to see that we had all we needed within the collective walls of the school to move ourselves forward. Sta took advantage of the daily embedded opportunities to learn and grow from

each other. I love being in collaborative team meetings and seeing sta members show vulnerability by asking questions, sharing what they know and what they need from each other, and showing curiosity in how their work can be done more e ectively and e ciently to impact their excellence in the classroom and to push students beyond their limits.

I love PLCs for the community that develops from this way of doing work. We collaboratively worked together to develop our vision. We deepened our understanding of why we exist through our mission. We allowed the data to drive rich, meaningful discussions that led us to develop aggressive student, teacher, and school goals, and then we created our norms. e norms gave us the opportunity to discuss and understand the conditions we wanted to develop to allow us to be able to engage in our best work. Doing this work put all of us on the same bus and moving in the same direction. We were united by the understanding that we do what is best for our students. e community that was built around this cascaded into other aspects of our school. I saw how staff rallied behind each other during adversity and di cult personal times. When staff members were not at work, the remaining teachers jumped to action to ensure our students were taken care of. Many staff volunteered to take on additional students. I also saw authentic, genuine celebrations that sta had for each other—for graduations, the birth of children and grandchildren, and overcoming challenges.

The PLC philosophy has strengthened the character and the resolve of our school. It has allowed us to see each other not only as professionals who are committed to doing a great job but as people who have empathy and compassion for our work, our families, and each other. The community that was built over time has made our school a safe space for our students and staff.

I love PLCs because of the impact they make in student and adult lives and for how they build community and culture. I am so grateful and appreciative to the wonderful professionals I have had the pleasure of partnering with on this journey to impact student and adult lives.

ERIC ATUAHENE is the principal at Littleton STEM Academy located in the Littleton Elementary School District in Avondale, Arizona. He also serves as a Solution Tree Associate and has led multiple schools in becoming Model PLC Schools.