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COMMUNITY: How to launch a community

By Rick DuFour

Journal of Staff Development, Summer 2001 (Vol. 22, No. 3)

Copyright, National Staff Development Council, 2001. All rights reserved.

Educators seldom oppose the concept of a professional learning community. After all, who would be against the idea of a school in which the staff shares a sense of purpose, a vision of the school they’re trying to create, and a willingness to commit to achieving that vision?

Who wouldn’t want a school where teachers collaborate to find ways to help students achieve more?

Typically, educators are not against creating a professional learning community. They just don’t know where to begin given all the demands on them.

Two principals who have faced that question have made amazing progress in less than one school year. Becky Burnette and Mike O’Brien are each new to their schools this year, but their schools are in strikingly different settings. Burnette is principal of an established elementary school in rural Franklin County, Va. O’Brien is principal of a new urban middle school serving one of the poorest sections of Buffalo, N.Y. Both are featured in the Video Journal of Education (www.teachstream.com) on effective school leadership available in spring 2001. Their reflections on their experiences offer valuable insights for those hoping to initiate a professional learning community in their schools. Burnette’s observations are featured here; O’Brien’s will be featured in the next column.

DuFour: How did you introduce the topic of a professional learning community for your staff’s consideration?

Burnette: Before the start of the school year, I met with the entire staff in grade-level teams. We discussed their perceptions of the school and what could be done to improve it. While each team cited the competence and commitment of the staff among the school’s strengths, they also shared a common frustration over insufficient time to work together. I followed up these discussions by sending staff a summary of the conversations and an article on professional learning communities. In that letter, I made a commitment to work with them to build a master schedule that would provide time for teams to work together each week without impacting instructional time for students or individual preparation time. I met with each team again in the opening week of school, presented them with a draft of a team schedule, and worked with them to fine-tune it until they were enthusiastic about their schedule. In October, I took the entire School Improvement Committee to a conference on professional learning communities, and they became the champions of the concept to the rest of the faculty. They led the process that helped the faculty identify the shared vision, collective commitments, and specific goals of the school. The vision, commitments, and goals were, in turn, written into the annual School Improvement Plan.

DuFour: What has been your biggest challenge in promoting a professional learning community, and how have you responded to that challenge?

Burnette: The biggest challenge was to ensure that teams used their collaborative time in ways that focused upon and enhanced student achievement. To meet that challenge, I facilitated each team in establishing operational norms or protocols that would guide their work. I also helped each team identify their specific student achievement goals. We worked together as a staff to ensure that each team’s goals were connected to and would advance our schoolwide goals in student achievement. Finally, I created weekly feedback sheets so teams could keep me informed of their activities and give me timely notice of any problems they were encountering. I respond in writing to each team’s feedback sheet each week.

Teachers were very responsive to this process. Problems arose when individuals did not fulfill the commitments of their team norms. At that point, I had to confront some staff members regarding their behavior, and work with some teams to resolve disputes and redirect their focus back to students. I have found that while confronting a colleague may not be pleasant, it can be absolutely necessary to reinforce the tenets of a professional learning community.

DuFour: What insights or advice could you offer a principal interested in creating a professional learning community in his or her school?

Burnette: First, principals must become knowledgeable about the characteristics and challenges of a professional learning community. They need to read, attend workshops, network with others, and receive training on professional learning communities. They must model the personal professional development they will ask of teachers.

Second, they must build a guiding coalition of key teacher leaders to assist with the effort. The initiative cannot and should not depend solely upon the principal.

Third, principals must present the concept of a professional learning community within the context of the school’s current improvement initiative. Teachers must come to regard the professional learning community not as one more thing, or a radical departure, but as an evolutionary step in their efforts to improve their school. Our teachers were very conversant with the Effective Schools and Basic Schools models. We made sure to present the professional learning community model as congruent with and an extension of those earlier initiatives.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, principals must be willing to take action. In an earlier principalship, I was reluctant to initiate the professional learning community concept in my school because I was not sufficiently confident in my own understanding and competence. I procrastinated, feeling I needed to read more, study more, attend another conference, etc. I have discovered the best way to learn about professional learning communities is to work through the concept in my school. I now appreciate the adage that "understanding follows action." So my best advice to a colleague interested in helping a school get started in building a professional learning community is to resist the temptation to procrastinate. As Nike would say, "Just do it."

About the author

Rick DuFour is superintendent of Adlai Stevenson High School District 125. You can contact him at Two Stevenson Drive, Lincolnshire, IL 60069, (847) 634-4000, ext. 268, fax (847) 634-0239, e-mail: dufour@district125.k12.il.us.

Becky Burnette is principal of Boones Mill Elementary School in Franklin County, Va. You can reach her at 265 Taylors Road, Boones Mill, VA 24065, (540) 334-4000, fax (540) 334-4001, e-mail: bburnette@frco.k12.va.us

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