Superintendent Sal
You are interested in working with principals to establish a professional learning community. But, you want to be clear about exactly what it is you want principals to do so that you can coach them in the process.

Your task is to find the five most common characteristics of a professional learning community and prepare a draft presentation for the board president describing what a learning community is (describing the five most common characteristics) and how it will benefit students.

Leadership resources have been identified as follows:
Southwest Educational Development Laboratory (SEDL)
Shirley Hord and the researchers at SEDL have investigated the change process and school improvement. They have done extensive research on Professional Learning Communities and regularly review that research in "Issues for Change" that can be found on the SEDL website. Of particular interest for this study is the article Professional Learning Communities: What are they and why are they important? The article can be found at: www.sedl.org/change/issues/issues61.html.

Appalachia Regional Educational Laboratory (AEL)
For more than 35 years, the AEL, Inc., has served as one of the 10 federally supported Regional Laboratories, serving Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia. The center has investigated ways of broadening the learning community. The findings about how to broaden the learning community can be found at: www.ael.org/rel/quest/framewk/broaden.htm

The Comprehensive School Reform Demonstration Project (CSRD)
The Southern Maine Partnership works to link school renewal and teacher development through the CSRD funding. The Coalition of Essential Schools is a national reform organization that addresses whole school reform. Based on research, the Coalition asks schools to investigate the 10 common Principles and to determine what the school needs to do to translate those principles into practice. A discussion of professional learning community is included at: info.csd.org/staffdev/rpdc/darticle.html.

Education Commission of the States (ECS)
The Education Commission of the States article on the progress of reform movement of school-based management reviews the research findings and profiles a school district and a state. The article can be found at: www.ecs.org/clearinghouse/26/58/2658.htm.

North Central Regional Educational Laboratory (NCREL)
NCREL is a regional center that focuses on comprehensive school reform. They identify nine components that must be integrated in support of school reform. These components are described at: /www.ncrel.org/csri/ninecomp.html.