What is the Professional Leanring Community at Lighthouse?

At Lighthouse we believe that having a strong Professional Learning Community is essential to our success in achieving our mission. Deeply rooted in research, it is our belief that we must have a Professional Learning Community that is:

1. Focused on learning - academic, social, and emotional - as that is at the core of our mission
2. Supported by a collaborative culture, in which adults work together in pursuit of our mission
3. Goal-oriented, so that individual educators, teacher teams, and the school a whole have a clear understanding of the vision for the school and the incremental steps we can take together in meeting that vision
4. Data-driven, providing and analyzing relevant information to inform instructional and institutional decisions

What are the identified Core Practices of our Professional Learning Community?

Collaborative Culture
At the heart of a collaborative culture is the establishment of group norms. At Lighthouse, we believe the character traits we expect of our students are also the ones we should expect of ourselves in our Professional Learning Community. These norms are as follows:

• Treat all members of our community with dignity and respect
• Assume best intentions, especially in hard times and times of conflict
• Respect each other’s schedule by coming to meetings on time, prepared, and fully present

Responsibility

• Take care of yourself and others in our community
• Follow through with your commitments, as these impact the community as a whole
• Take leadership on things that are important to you

Courage

• Share your truth and help to create a space where others can as well
• Constructively and promptly deal with conflicts

Compassion

• Be kind, considerate and patient
• Be aware of people’s emotions and needs

Communication

• Practice active listening
• Share your ideas and enable others to do so (monitor your air time)
• Be open and honest, and also sensitive to the impact your words may have

Collaboration

• Be engaged, honest, and willing to grow by sharing and accepting new ideas
• Know those who you collaborate with well
• Be solution oriented

Integrity

• Follow your personal principles

Reflection

• Think before acting
• Look at your experiences and improve what you think could be done better or changed if needed

Curiosity

• Be open to different points of view and experiences
• Ask questions of each other

Persistence

• Solve problems and resolve conflicts even when it is hard
• Always continue to develop relationships with staff, students, and families

Focus on Learning: Goal-Oriented & Data-Driven
At Lighthouse, we believe that our ultimate goal is student achievement – academically, socio-emotionally, and behaviorially. With this focus on achievement and learning in mind, we also believe that we best advance this achievement when teachers collaborate on their curriculum and practice. Finally, we believe that in order to support this collaboration teachers must identify specific goals for their students and be provided with regular data with which to analyze and adjust practice in pursuit of these goals. Three key practices serve to support this collaboration at Lighthouse:

• SMART Goals & PDPs – Each educator in our Professional Learning Community identifies specific SMART (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Results-Oriented, Time-Bound) goals for the year that will move their practice and our school in our pursuit of the mission. These goals are then used to develop and individual Professional development Plan (PDP).
• Inquiry Groups – Each teacher in our Professional Learning Community participates in an inquiry group. This inquiry group brings educators from like grade levels or disciplines together to discuss practice, analyze data, make action plans, and investigate new strategies.
• Interim Assessments – As a school, Lighthouse conducts Interim Assessments in Literacy and Math four times per year. These Interim Assessments are used to provide an external checkpoint, if you will, on student movement toward goals and to give teachers specific, relevant information on how students are doing as a whole, as small groups, and as individuals in mastering the learning targets.

What is Distributed Leadership and Decision Making at Lighthouse?

At Lighthouse we believe the professionals closest to their practice best know what is working well and what can be improved.  We also believe Lighthouse staff should take leadership for what they care about and our primary task is ensuring that students achieve the mission of college or a career of their choice.  Therefore, Lighthouse has a distributed leadership model that shares leadership responsibilities amongst numerous staff to develop a culture of leadership.  Lighthouse also has an articulated decision making process that encourages staff to actively pursue innovative ideas that they believe will influence our students abilities to achieve our mission.

What are the identified Core Practices of Distributed Leadership and Decision Making?

Shared Leadership
One person can’t do it all.  To maintain and sustain our professional learning community, leadership is distributed amongst staff.  Staff with the experience, expertise, and willingness share in school leadership by filling the following roles. 

• Serving as Lead Teacher and Inquiry Group Facilitator for their loop or department
• K-2 Lead Teacher
• 3-4 Lead Teacher
• 6-10 Humanities Chair
• 6-10 Math & Science Chair
• Arts, Fitness & Wellness Chair

Serving as a Mentor to staff to Lighthouse or to the teaching profession

Decision Making

When teachers take leadership for what they care about, innovation occurs.  However, innovation and the subsequent implementation must be considered carefully to ensure that it furthers our capacity to achieve our mission and does not conflict with other structural foundations of Lighthouse.  Lighthouse Directors serve as the ultimate judge of an innovation and the decision making process balances the desire to keep teachers energized about improving their practice and school, with whole school structures and mission, by utilizing the following core practices:

• Having structures for teachers to share innovations

• Having a process for reviewing innovations

• Sharing decisions with all community members to ensure effective school wide communication