Arthur Elementary is located in south Oklahoma City. We serve a population of 535 students of which 98% qualify for the free and reduced lunch program. In 2011-2012, Arthur Elementary was placed in year one of school improvement due to declining progress over the previous 3 years. Essentially, Arthur Elementary had become a low performing school in a short time. While Professional Learning Communities was not a new initiative to our school or district, it became an area of focus for our rapid school-improvement plan. In the summer of 2012 our leadership team attended the PLC conference in Las Vegas (again) and returned to school with a relentless ambition to become a model PLC as quickly and effectively as we could.
Our process included a fine-tuning of our team and group processes, identifying needs, determining a path of systematic pyramid of interventions, and prioritizing our school’s instructional master schedule to meet the needs of every learner at our school. For the first time in several years grade-levels were able to have shared common planning for collaboration daily. Smart goals, progress monitoring, and continuous improvement became the collect thought throughout our staff. The investment of time, energy, and resources , the dedication of hard work and collaboration has resulted in an increase in our API/OPI each year. In 2012-2013 we celebrated our designation as a “Highly Progressing” school – a recognition awarded to the top 10% of Title I schools in the state of Oklahoma. Our most recent preliminary data indicates our strongest growth to date in on our spring 2013 test scores. Our success is a result of becoming an effective PLC focus on results!
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Rhonda Schroeder
Oklahoma City, OK