Re-igniting Your PLCs and School Teams By Building a Relational and Data Driven Culture

Marcos Hernandez • Cahn Fellow 2022

Ellen Ochoa Learning Center is located in Cudahy, California.  With one of the lowest per capita income in the nation, families experience tremendous pressures which impact their educational experience. This PK- 8th Dual Language (Spanish) school has been providing amazing programs for students and their families. From being one of the first span schools to become a Turnaround Arts School to receiving WASC accreditation and offering innovative programs for all students, it is definitely a school on the move.  During the pandemic this was one of the hardest hit communities in Los Angeles county, not just in the number of positive cases, but also in the number of deaths. The school became a beacon of hope by providing thousands of meals, Covid tests and vaccinations for families.  While the school has done tremendous work in increasing social-emotional support for families and increasing the number of partnerships, like many other schools, our students are struggling with learning loss.  When we review school-wide student achievement data, trends move from small gains to a sort of plateau. 

After trying so many programs and district initiatives, we took a good look at our professional development plan from the previous school year.  We noticed that over 60% of the professional development took place in Professional Learning Communities.  We decided to focus on making sure that the main vehicle for improving teaching and learning, Professional Learning Communities (PLCs), received a major tune up. Just putting teachers in a room and writing “PLC” on a professional development plan does not lead to transformation. Effective PLCs require an intentional investment of time to build relationships and collaboration skills.  We decided to re-ignite our PLCs by infusing relational trust and data-driven cycles for improvement. Building healthy teacher teams is one of the highest leverage investments according to Lencioni, DuFuor and Hattie.