Charles County schools formalize collaborative planning, principals report early gains

Charles County Public Schools leaders and principals described a systemwide rollout of structured collaborative planning and professional learning teams (PLTs) at a board meeting, saying the work is intended to improve instruction and student outcomes by protecting teacher planning time and aligning lessons to district goals.

District staff said the initiative asks elementary schools to schedule weekly collaborative planning (recommended 30 minutes for math and 30 minutes for reading), middle schools to plan 30 minutes a day in core subjects and high schools to schedule about 30 minutes per week, with principals responsible for protecting that time. "It's a time, a scheduled time during the day when a group of teachers get together," Kevin Lowndes said. "The purpose of collaborative planning is really to improve our student outcomes."

Why it matters: The district framed collaborative planning as a way to pair newer teachers with experienced colleagues, sharpen standards-based lesson design, and use short cycles of data analysis to identify reteaching needs. Principals and teachers who presented said the protected time has led to steadier lesson design, more peer feedback and—at some schools—measurable improvements on interim and state assessments.

At JP Ryan Elementary, Principal Martin Adams and his fourth-grade team described a multi-year effort that used a teacher-leader role to scale planning practices across grades. Assistant Principal Keya Hawkins presented I-Ready growth data for last year’s fourth-grade cohort and reported changes in MCAP performance: "We were able to decrease by 24 percent of students who were performing at the beginning level on MCAP in math, as well as decrease by 9 percent the students who are performing at the beginning level in reading," Hawkins said. She also reported a 4 percent gain in reading and a 3 percent gain in math for the cohort; Adams said consistent planning time coincided with a drop in disciplinary referrals — "we ended a year almost 200 referrals less than we were the year before," he said — and improved attendance.

At Theodore Davis Middle School, Principal Robert Griffiths told the board his school moved to daily collaborative meetings for grade-level and content teams. Griffiths said teams complete a short facilitator form after each session to capture the meeting purpose, participants and next steps. "We had to make a plan so that we were doing it daily. Everybody needs a planning partner," he said, adding that the school is using shared “evidence of learning” tasks to drive reteach decisions based on daily data.

Presenters also described how specialty teachers and support staff are included when possible. At JP Ryan, teachers said they invite ESOL and special education staff to planning sessions to co‑plan modifications and supports; the teachers said that approach helped them design kinesthetic, visual and scaffolding supports for diverse learners.

District staff acknowledged schedule and time constraints remain the biggest implementation challenge. Presenters described several practical workarounds: using special-area classes (art, music, PE) and staggered schedules to create common planning windows, running after‑school sessions for deeper planning, and piloting an "adult learning space" or "collab lab" to centralize resources and agendas.

District training and coaching: Melissa Mysiewicz (instructional professional learning) and Theresa Peck (instructional program support) described training modules, planning templates and facilitation coaching rolled out over the summer. Mysiewicz said collaborative planning teams select one focused purpose per meeting (data inquiry, examining student work, lesson planning or professional learning) and use structured prompts and checklists to stay on task.

Next steps: Presenters said the district will continue to expand training, monitor alignment to curriculum maps and school improvement plans, and collect evidence of fidelity through teacher-completed meeting logs and periodic coaching visits. Several board members asked for more detail about how schools will track the work over time, and administrators said they will bring implementation data to future briefings.

Taken together, district leaders and school teams told the board they view collaborative planning as a long-term instructional strategy rather than a short-term program, and they tied the approach to both academic goals and teacher retention efforts.