2/6/12 PLC meeting

We briefly discussed that our PLC has decided to not attend the PLC training this summer. We will be looking at dates for summer 2013 in hopes of finding a date that works for our calendars sooner.

Today we discussed the needs of students for 2012-2013 as the 5th graders move down. Scheduling is still up in the air, and we hope to continue to be in on the conversations to find the best solutions for students and success. We have questions about the building project(s) being planned and hope to also be in on those conversations as we have content specific needs that architects or administrators might not specifically have knowledge of.

1/9/12 meeting

Notes from Heidi in Ronda's absence:

PLC 8:30-9:40 meeting

We discussed the dates of PLC training sessions and which one we could all attend; June 7-9 in St. Louis, Missouri, June 20 and October 2 and 3 in Cedar Falls at the AEA, or August 6-8 in Illinois. Appears that the August time might work for everyone. A few are checking their calendars.

We also spent part of our time discussing scheduling for next year with the potential move of 5th graders to the middle school.

December 12 PLC Meeting

We focused on exploring edmodo and the applications to our K-12 area.

November 28 PLC Meeting

Our group diverted from our normal PLC topic of discussion of IPI data and held a very meaningful discussion about the meeting Ronda is having with Department of Education Director, Dr. Jason Glass, and other arts educators this afternoon in Des Moines.

We discussed things like the economic development that the arts can (and do) bring to the state, as well as how even more of an emphasis on the arts (beginning at PreK on up) could foster even more economic development. Studies have shown that when businesses look to relocate or open in a new area, they will often first look at a family friendly community with a strong arts base, such as community theater, band or arts center, as well as strong arts programs within it's schools. (On a related, but side note...We talked about a number of the previous graduating valedictorians and salutatorians and noted that nearly all of them were a leader in one of the arts areas in our school.)

November 14 - PLC Meeting

We reviewed the article e-mailed out by Mr. VanderPol on November 2, "Five Dysfunctions of a Professional Learning Community" (http://whatworks.wholechildeducation.org/blog/five-dysfunctions-of-a-professional-learning-community/#.TrFPCZtFKA4.gmail)

Dysfunction #1: Lack of Norms

Our PLC does have norms, but perhaps they need to be revisited more regularly or be more detailed.

Dysfunction #2: Lack of Team Goals

Our PLC has clearly defined goals. We feel that we need to either focus on one content area (or one teacher's work) at a time or have longer lengths of time to focus our work on more than one.

Dysfunction #3: Lack of Trust

We feel that we are cohesive and are not afraid to bring our problems to the group and help one another problem solve concerns in our content areas.

Dysfunction #4: Lack of Communication

Something that might be beneficial is that we all comment on the blog entries as things arise. With PLC members in two different buildings, we don't always have a common start time for our PLC. Ronda will forward e-mails from Mr. VanderPol to Heidi and Bev; Heidi will forward e-mails from Mrs. Miller to Ronda to disseminate to Emily and Andrew.

On a related, but slightly separate note, we miss seeing the agenda and minutes from the SIT meetings this year. We would like to have more information about the team's topics of discussion and at how decisions are determined. We discussed that there is not a fine arts content area representative on the team.

Dysfunction #5: Lack of Essential Learning Outcomes

Our PLC could possibly be used as a time for "up-downs" between the elementary and middle school in our content areas to share information about student skill ability levels.

After discussing the article, Emily and Ronda shared that they were unable to attend a scheduled IPI training in Forest City last week. Mr. VanderPol is looking for other training opportunities. We believe it will be helpful to have members of the fine arts content staff trained in IPI.

October 31 PLC meeting

Present: Boquet, Dirks, Leverton, Sternhagen, VanHoorweghe

Absent: None

We discussed at length our Career Development Plans. We have differing data about how Plans are being written at the elementary and secondary buildings. Not all of us have been directed by our respective administrator to tie our Plan into our PLC work, even though after sharing our Plans with the group, we see how the individual plans do tie to our PLC work.

Emily and Ronda are scheduled to attend IPI training at Forest City on Thursday, November 10. We feel that this will help us better understand the process of "coding" in regard to the Fine Arts content areas. We will be reporting back to our PLC about what we learned and how we can apply that knowledge to our PLC work.

We also entertained a lengthy discussion about our scheduling concerns for next year.

October 17 PLC Meeting

Due to the time that the elementary BLT dismissed, the elementary members of our PLC were unable to join us for the PLC time today. Andrew, Emily and Ronda worked on Curriculum Manager in their absence.