LDOE supervisors visit schools to support PLCs, instructional leadership teams, committee hears

Dr. Monica Brose, supervisor of assessment and accountability, told the Education Technology and Policy Committee that staff from the state Department assigned to districts support several initiatives by attending teacher collaborations and professional learning communities (PLCs), instructional leadership team meetings, classroom observations and intervention sessions.

"They need to attend teacher collaborations and PLCs," Brose said, and those are meetings "where teachers come together, they look at student work, and then they also look at the curriculum that they're using to see how they can use that curriculum to meet students' needs." She said supervisors provide specific feedback linked to the evaluation rubric used for teachers and that the language and observation tool align with that rubric.

Committee members asked about the scope and format of the visits. Mr. Waza asked whether the visitors were "people from the State" and whether every parish received support; Brose said she believed the visits cover "pretty much every parish in the state." Mr. Ford asked whether high-school PLCs are content-based and whether elementary PLCs are organized by grade level; Brose said schools use both approaches and sometimes alternate between grade-level and content-area planning, with some vertical planning as well.

Brose said the state's supervisors give targeted feedback during visits and that the supervisors will return in March to observe additional interventions. The committee did not vote on any action related to the presentation during this meeting.