Glasgow Schools Asking for Input

The Glasgow School District school board is looking to receive input from the community in the form of a survey to determine if students should have an early out or late start and which day of the week would work best. The survey can be taken at the Glasgow School website at glasgow.k12.mt.us.

Glasgow Schools is utilizing the professional learning communities (PLC) approach, which answers four basic questions what do we want each student to learn? How will we know when each student has learned it? How will we respond when a student experiences difficulty in learning? and How will we respond when a student already knows it? To answer these questions, educators meet on a weekly basis in order to create the time to work on continuous school improvements.

There are also three big ideas for the PLC model with the first one being ensuring that students learn. The PLC models form the assumption that the core mission of formal education is not simply to ensure that they learn. The simple shift, from a focus on teaching to a focus on learning, has a profound impact on schools.

The second big idea is a culture of collaboration. Educators who are building a PLC recognize that they must work together to achieve their collective purpose of learning for all; therefore they create structures to promote a collaborative culture.

The third big idea is to focus on results. PLCs judge their effectiveness on the basis of results. Working together to improve student achievement becomes the routine work of everyone in the school. Every teacher team participates in an ongoing process of identifying the current level of student achievement, establishing a goal to improve the current level, working together to achieve that goal and providing periodic evidence of progress.

For further questions regarding the survey or the PLC process, contact the Glasgow School at 406-228-2406. The survey can be taken at the Glasgow School website at glasgow.k12.mt.us.