The buzz word for teachers and administrators in Austin Public Schools recently is “PLCs,” or “Professional Learning Communities,” said Mark Randall, principal at Southgate Elementary School.

“The Professional Learning Communities are kind of what we are looking at in best practices for enhancing student achievement,” Randall explained. “(We are) looking at ways to collaborate among teachers … really getting together and focusing on what’s best for students.

“The staff are the ‘professionals’; the ‘learning’ part is learning something new about education; the ‘communities’ part is getting together with colleagues,” he said.

Each building is doing it differently, he pointed out.

At Southgate, the teachers and principals gather for meetings on a regular basis to review data and put together a plan for improvement. Specifically, the school is focusing on the area of mathematics and what they can do to improve performance, especially on the MCA tests, where students struggle with the written response portion.

“Once or twice a month, they get together after school and they talk about what they’ve read,” Randall said. “They bring student work, they look at how the students are performing in that area.

“The research shows, when you can get groups of professionals together … it really does have an impact on kids,” he said.

Each meeting has a facilitator, and the staff report on what they’ve studied and how students are performing.

Although PLCs are still new to the district, Randall said the feedback from staff so far shows they are realizing the benefits of connecting with other professionals.

“It’s been really, really fun to see the teachers collaborate,” he said. “It’s been pretty phenomenal.”