PROBLEM

The Problem or Question Our Task:

// How do we clarify and communicate the vision, mission, and values of our organization? How do we develop a shared understanding of our vision, mission, and goals? How do we provide for opportunities for leadership that empower staff to lead and learn? How do we develop a framework for a sustained professional learning community that creates a collaborative process that results in both individual and organizational learning? //

 **Essential Question** How do we improve the process of how we share, collaborate and communicate across buildings, across grade levels, and across content areas to share best practices to increase staff and student learning?

 Develop a dynamic framework to support a professional learning community that cultivates, supports, and sustains a culture of collaboration, communication, leadership and shared learning for staff and students.
 * The Solution**




 * Barriers**

//We need to direct our own lives, to learn and create new things, and to do better //// by ourselves and our worlds. // ~Daniel Pink from //Drive//

**Focus** – Collectively we have come together in a shared vision, //Inspire Excellence// and the path is captured in our mission, //to help our students achieve dreams they never imagined possible//, however the focused plan based on goals and action steps has not been articulated to the greater learning community that we call the Berea City School District.


 * Motivation** – We do not always understand nor realize that collectively, we can be self-directed and part of a system at the same time (autonomy), that we have the capacity to make a difference through our work, and are willing to take the responsibility to do so (efficacy) and that we do things in service of something larger than ourselves (purpose).


 * Communication** - As a district we have many opportunities to learn, to attend professional development and to explore new methods but very few avenues to collaborate and share these ideas in an ongoing manner.


 * Collaboration** - As a district, it is difficult to create common planning time and opportunities to collaborate across all subjects and grade levels to align curriculum, instruction and assessment. Substitutes are not available or very limited, common planning time is not scheduled at buildings or across the district, and when teachers are pulled, there is missed instructional time.


 * Transparency**– Staff does not have the means nor are they motivated to share ideas in a supported network.


 * Culture** - We are caught between two realms of practice - a preference to work together or a preference to work on my own. This is magnified between buildings. Resistance to try new things is due to a lack of understanding.


 * Change** – Our educational landscape is changing on many different levels at the same time – the 21st century learner, powerful learning practices, new technologies, unknown assignments, added responsibilities, new relationships, new curriculum, new standards – all the while keeping our eyes on internal and external accountabilities. How we respond or react to the change becomes a state of resistance.


 * Structure** – Time, opportunity and access are limited due to the structure of the day and the design of the current system. Learning only occurs when it is scheduled and not all teachers share the responsibility and take action. Let’s blow it up and redesign it.


 * Geography**– Our district is made up of three distinct communities and the 12 schools and the distance between each facility in and of itself creates logistical barriers to collaborating during and outside of the school day.


 * Technology**– The district has not developed an infrastructure that supports open access. The age of our buildings limits the opportunity for network access for all staff. Teachers are not provided a dedicated computer as extension for teaching and learning.

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