Aligning School Districts as PLCs - Softcover

Mark Van Clay is a consultant in the areas of collaborative leadership, performance scorecards and dashboards, systems and role alignment, strategic visioning, continuous improvement models and strategies, reporting through data, shared revenue models and collective bargaining contracts, student management as a behavior curriculum, and the application of instructional theory to classroom practice. He also consults on continuous organizational improvement through the Consortium for Educational Change. Mark is coauthor of The School Board Fieldbook: Leading With Vision (2009) and has published multiple articles in state and national professional journals. A twenty-two-year superintendent whose leadership experiences include wealthy, financially challenged, and ethnically diverse school districts, Mark is also a former principal, elementary teacher, and gifted writing instructor for schools in suburban Chicago. As a superintendent and principal, Mark s leadership led to U.S. Department of Education Blue Ribbon School Awards for two schools, one in a wealthy suburban district and the other in a school with a high ethnic student population. Mark holds doctorate, masters, and bachelors degrees from Northern Illinois University, Purdue University Calumet, and DePauw University, respectively. Perry Soldwedel is the Director of Continuous Improvement for the Consortium of Educational Change. CEC is a not-for-profit consortium of some eighty Illinois school districts who work together to accelerate behaviors and actions leading to organizational growth and improvement. His expertise is in the areas of shared leadership, system assessment, strategic visioning, data collection and measurement, information/analysis, accountability, and the alignment of standards, assessments, and instruction. Perry is a former school district superintendent, assistant superintendent for curriculum and instruction, technology director, principal, assistant principal, and elementary and middle school teacher, all in the state of Illinois. His district received two Blue Ribbon School awards and was the recipient of a $3.5 million U. S. Department of Education Technology Challenge Grant. The district also received a Lincoln/Baldrige award. He has taught continuing education classes for the University of Illinois. He is coauthor of The School Board Fieldbook: Leading With Vision (2009). Perry received his three degrees from the University of Illinois, Bradley University, and Western Illinois University. Thomas W. Many, former superintendent of Kildeer Countryside Community Consolidated School District 96 in Buffalo Grove, Illinois, keeps a sharp focus on school improvement issues. He uses the tenets of professional learning communities (PLC) to ensure that all students are able to reach their maximum potential. Student achievement in District 96 has improved every year for twelve consecutive years. More than 95 percent of all students now meet or exceed state standards. The district has been especially effective in helping students with special needs improve their academic performance. Under Tom s leadership, District 96 has become recognized as one of the premier elementary school districts in the nation. Tom s long and distinguished career includes twenty years of experience as a superintendent. He has also served as a classroom teacher, learning center director, curriculum supervisor, principal, and assistant superintendent. A dedicated PLC practitioner, Tom is a compelling and sought-after speaker and coauthor of Learning by Doing: A Handbook for Professional Learning Communities at WorkTM (2006, 2010) with Rick DuFour, Rebecca DuFour, and Robert Eaker.