Thursday afternoon six Fairview Heights Elementary third grade teachers sat down at a table to discuss what was working, or not working, in their classes.

The concept is called a Professional Learning Community (PLC).

“How did we do with the Venn diagrams,” Judy Jernigan asked the other teachers about an assignment to compare and contrast two pieces of literature they’d all taught this week.

“I found that with my class, as a whole, comparing came easier,” Wanda Wiggins said from across the table. “But comparing was a little bit harder for them to get down.”

“It was kind of the same in my class,” Michelle Austin said. “The kids were really thinking about the two stories, and what was similar about them.”

“OK, what strategies do you guys feel like we can use to help them with comparing and contrasting,” Jernigan asked. “Is there anything we need to be doing differently? Maybe ... When you start to teach that skill, do you compare or contrast first?”

Michelle Austin said in her class they looked at contrasting before comparing.

“It’s like they were picking out real quick what the stories don’t share,” she said.

This type of interaction is exactly what Richmond County Schools hoped to create between teachers when it introduced the concept of PLC’s to teachers and other staff at each school district-wide, Assistant Superintendent Dr. Michael Perry said.

“We’re trying to bring a lot of consistency for our students, but also professional development for our teachers,” he said.

He said the decisions made in PLC’s aren’t purely driven by teacher’s naked eyes. They are based on data.

“There is a lot of data that we bring to the table when we make these decisions,” Perry continued. “But also, we’re able to get a look at the school, the class and the individual student, and when the teachers and principals start to buy into the strategies that we share in these groups - the student benefits.”

He said system administrators have been “very pleased” with the results they’ve seen thus far in the program.

One topic of discussion among the third grade teachers at Fairview Heights was “shared assessments,” or testing given to gauge student performance in anticipation of end-of-grade testing.

Joy Starling continued the discussion about comparing and contrasting stories, and the lessons the teachers had taught, and learned, over the past week.

“Knowing what you know about what your kids have done right now, when you give the shared assessment, how do you think we should handle this skill,” she asked.

At Ellerbe Middle School, three of the four eighth grade teachers met with Principal Melvin Ingram, Guidance Counselor Theresa Gardner and Exceptional Children Instructor Anita Shephard.

Their meeting was a little different, because they don’t all teach the same lessons. Kelly Maree teaches history, Talia Swinney teaches math and Angela McDonald teaches science, and language arts teacher Alison Wilson was absent that day, so they couldn’t necessarily discuss the delivery of their lesson plans.

Their discussion revolved more around the general well-being of the students, what students are having behavioral problems.