How can a school that no one wants to attend be transformed into one of the most successful and publicized schools in the country? Richard DuFour, the superintendent of Adlai Stevenson School District in Lincolnshire, Ill., managed to do it in just a few years. However, he acknowledged, the process required a tremendous amount of dedication, perseverance, and teamwork.
“I know how difficult it is to transform a school,” he said in his Special Feature presentation. “It's not easy, but there are some things that we can do to transform our schools and make them fundamentally more effective learning places.”
The first step, he stressed, is to understand that the purpose of a school is not to teach but to learn. “In most schools, the teacher work-year is separated from the teacher learn-year—the teacher teaches 176 days and then ‘learns’ on those four staff development days.” But if the school is transformed into a professional learning community where people are willing to try new things, willing to engage in collaborative efforts, and willing to engage in collective inquiry, those schools will not suffer from “paralysis by analysis,” according to DuFour. “Instead,” he said, “they'll understand what we all know: that you learn best not by thinking or talking but by doing.”
While confessing that such an approach may sound “jargonny” to some, DuFour pointed out that the step-by-step process requires more than just dedication to wordy mission statements or lofty goals. “Too often, the problem is that we haven't aligned our practices with that mission of learning for everyone. Are our kids learning? How do we know that they're learning? And, most important, what are we prepared to do when they don't learn?” That final question, he asserted, is what distinguishes a professional learning community from its peers.
In a professional learning community, DuFour said, there is commitment to help students learn, but the commitment goes much deeper than in other schools. “In the professional learning community, we say that learning is so important that we're going to do whatever it takes to help you learn, and we're not going to let up on you until you do learn,” he said. He went on to describe the system that has served Stevenson so well in Chicago and won it national recognition for its achievements.
“When a kid comes to our school, if we think he may have some struggles ahead of him, our counselors will already have talked to his previous teachers and developed a profile on him. They will also arrange for him to have a teacher be his friend, an upperclassman be his mentor—and we're also going to monitor his progress every three weeks,” DuFour said. “If he's failing algebra, for example, there are several levels of involvement that we will put into effect to help him.” The first step involves a teacher recommending extra study hall for the student. At the same time, a faculty advisor pairs him with his upper-class mentor, and then the next day his counselor may review the student's progress report with him. “The idea is to get him to the point where he says, ‘Okay, enough already! I'll do my work!’” said DuFour.
But, he also asserted, it is what happens after such efforts that truly distinguishes the professional learning community. “If all those efforts don't work and Johnny's still failing algebra, then a crisis intervention team consisting of a dean, a counselor, and a social worker may sit down and come up with a plan that's going to help get him back on track. He won't have a choice of getting a tutor; one will be assigned to him. Progress reports won't be every three weeks, but weekly, and if he's still not doing better, he'll be put into a study hall environment with a paraprofessional whose job description says, ‘Hover.’R” He went on to describe the kind of conversation the paraprofessional would have with the troubled student on a given Monday morning:
Monitor: “Johnny, it's Monday morning. Did you do your math homework?”Johnny: “No, we didn't have any.”Monitor: “Yes, you did. I have it right here. You were supposed to do pages 128 and 129.”Johnny: “Oh, I didn't do it. I forgot.”Monitor: “Really? Well, take out your textbook. You're going to do it right now.”Johnny: “I can't. It's in my locker.”Monitor: “Really? Well, guess what? Here's a hall pass. Go get it.”Johnny: “Actually, I forgot. I left it at home.”Monitor: “Really? Well, you're in luck. I have a spare copy right here. Sit down. You're going to do it right now while I watch you. In fact, I'm going to stand here and hover over you until you do it.”
Further intervention programs, DuFour said, include dropping some classes to get the student back on track and bringing his parents in for counseling as well. In extreme cases—such as incidents of drug abuse, emotional difficulties, or serious family problems—a social worker may become involved to assess the situation. “The bottom line,” DuFour said, “is that what we teach is too important to let you fail.”
Implementing this multilayered intervention approach, he said, took time and patience, but the rewards were well worth the effort. “It took us three years to build this pyramid of intervention. It didn't happen overnight, but it also didn't require any additional staffing or budget outlays other than hiring one teacher when we implemented the study hall.” The process did require Stevenson to address how its staff was employed, DuFour said, but such efforts were simply part of what the school needed to do to succeed. “We had to learn to use our people differently, to take teachers out of bathroom and cafeteria duty and use them in more professional ways. But if we're going to become a professional learning community, we will sometimes need to work around the history and traditions and cultures of our school to achieve results, and so will you,” he said.
Still, such challenges can be met with enough effort and perseverance, according to DuFour. All that is required, he asserted, is that special level of commitment from someone and the courage to get it started. “Everyone has the capacity to plant those seeds of professional learning communities in districts that are indifferent,” he said. “I've seen it work in departments where the school culture is toxic; I've seen high school teachers create it in a microcosm that creates attention and draws other faculty members to it like moths to a flame. You can do it. Anyone can do it, but it requires that one special person to get it started.”
