On Monday of this week five members of the PLC loaded into a Chrysler minivan and headed north to Orangeville with great expectation and anticipation. We were on our way to visit Westside H.S. and their PLC. It has been a goal of a small group of ours to get the PLC model of teacher collaboration integrated into our schools framework. Chad and I had met our hosts Nicole and Mike at the TLLP conference in Toronto. We expressed our interest in beginning a PLC at our school and they didn't hesitate to allow us into their world.We sat with Nicole, Susan and Scott for the morning and they went through the a to z of PLC for us. What were the keys we picked up on?: staff find the PLC framework extremely effective, the road blocks were minimal and delt with quickly and timely, it all takes time to develop, and meetings must be run in a very specific ways with a clear agenda and a competent facilitator.
The afternoon of our visit took us to O.D.S.S.to meet with Jeffrey Kirkland, the principle that began the PLC at Westside before he moved to O.D.S.S. three years ago. The school had a similar demographic and culture to ours so we were really interested in what he had to say. His ideas were radical and caused all of us to have a pedigogical shift. He was inspiring. When we took his radical ideas back to our school they were met with immediate doubt. We'll see what we can do about that.
We would like to extend great gratitude to our hosts in Orangeville. I'm sure we will be in touch in the future for more collaboration.
