Sterling schools: Teachers' collective prep, planning pumping up student proficiency

STERLING – About three years ago, Sterling Public Schools decided to release its students early once a week to help those struggling academically, and district officials said the move is paying off.

In June 2022, Sterling’s District 5 Board approved a plan to release students an hour early every Wednesday. This schedule allows teachers and interventionists to meet and form professional learning communities, where they work together to analyze student performance, identify areas and groups needing improvement, and share strategies for success.

Amy Downs, SPS director of curriculum and instruction, said teachers of similar grade levels group with interventionists for a conversation that centers on four questions:

• What should students know and be able to do?
• How will teachers know if they have learned it?
• What will they do if the students have not learned it?
• What can be done to further enrich the material for the students who are getting it?

“They might not get to all four in one meeting,” Downs said. “One of the meetings could be, ‘What do we want students to learn today, this week or this unit?’ Then, they go over their unit plan to have consistency among the grade-level teachers.”

Downs said teachers have little time outside of class for preparation, and the weekly meetings help them make the most of their instruction time.

“You have to know your students and their different needs on top of your curriculum and your state standards while only having 30 minutes to plan for the next day of full instruction,” Downs said. “It’s not a lot of time. Research has shown that when we can do things collectively, it is much more effective than working by oneself.”

SPS uses a range of data to monitor the success of the professional learning communities, including assessments and common English language arts and math test scores, comparing the results to state benchmarks to gauge progress.

Downs said the district improved its proficiency in ELA by 7.7% in the first year of the initiative and 5.2% in the second year. Similarly, proficiency in math increased by 3.4% in the first year and 1.2% in the second year.

“Do I think that’s all due to PLCs?” Downs said. “No, I think it’s due to our teachers' knowledge and what they’re sharing during that PLC time, but maybe it’s also due to some of the professional developments that we’ve given and a lot of other factors that could go into that. But we have seen a positive increase.”

Some people initially were worried that the weekly early release would take away from students' overall instruction time, but Downs said SPS mitigated that concern by reducing the number of its half days.

“The negative is that it’s been an inconvenience to parents, and we understand that,” Downs said. “It’s difficult to have one day a week where your kids are getting out at a different time. But outweighing that is the benefit of our teachers being able to plan and meet together for the success of your children.”