What Happens When Administrators Allow Teachers to Lead?
Lessons from a teacher-designed PLC
This summer, I was on a planning call with district leaders preparing for our New Educator Orientation. As we were discussing, one of the supervisors paused and said, "One of the teachers from your PLC is leading professional learning for our new teachers on ELLevation this year." I smiled, not because she remembered our PLC, but because she no longer needed it. That's the goal of great professional learning. Not dependence. Leadership.
The Need for a Teacher-led PLC
The teachers in my building wanted practical strategies for supporting multilingual learners. The English Language Development (ELD) coach offered office hours to help teachers, but she was split between two schools, and her availability didn't always align with teachers' planning periods. I also saw this challenge in our building, as both new teachers and veteran teachers who knew my doctoral research focused on multilingual students were approaching me for help when they couldn't meet with the ELD coach. So instead of asking the district to provide training, we built one ourselves.
The district made supporting our multilingual learners (MLs) and students with disabilities (SWDs) a systemic priority. As a part of this initiative, the district invested in ELLevation, a program of research-backed strategies to help MLs in their content courses. However, the roll-out was shaky due to the platform not being populated with ML student data for several weeks.
Teachers had access to a wealth of strategies, but didn't know how to access them. They didn't need more information. They needed a place to learn together.
The Opportunity
Rather than waiting for the district to offer training on the program, the ELD coach and I brainstormed how to create one ourselves. We reached out to our administration and presented a proposal for the teacher-led PLC, as well as the district head of ELD department. Both were excited by this initiative, with the ELD head finding money to compensate participants with workshop wages.
The Design
We planned for the PLC to run for 12 weeks, meeting every other week. We strategically targeted four schools in the district with large ML populations and offered both virtual and in-person meeting options. Initially, we had capped attendance at 12 participants, but ended up expanding to 18 due to interest.
The ELLevation platform offers 108 strategies for supporting MLs. Every time the PLC met, participants were offered a curated choice of six strategies, a brief overview, and time to explore and select one they would focus on implementing over the next two weeks. We intentionally designed the PLC so teachers would spend more time discussing classroom implementation than listening to us present. At the final meeting, participants shared a strategy they chose that felt the most impactful to their teaching practice with the group.
PLC at a Glance | |
Duration | 12 weeks |
Participants | 18 teachers |
Schools represented | 4 |
Meeting format | Hybrid (virtual and in-person) |
Focus | ELLevation strategies for multilingual learners |
Outcome | Participants became instructional leaders in their own schools |
" I really value the dedicated time to explore the tools available on the ELLevation site, collaborate with colleagues, and thoughtfully consider the needs of my students. It’s easy to get caught up in the demands of day-to-day responsibilities, so having structured time to pause and reflect on what we can do differently is important." - a PLC participant
What Happened
Teachers stopped waiting for answers and instead started bringing them. They began sharing.
"Here's what worked in language arts."
"Here's how I adapted it for math."
"Here's what happened when I tried this with my newcomers."
We watched as teachers from different content areas, grade levels, and schools collaborated. Teachers shared their successes and challenges and offered help to each other. The expertise didn't stay within our PLC. It spread. Participants became the ELLevation experts in their own buildings.
The Leadership Lesson
When teachers are given meaningful opportunities to learn, experiment, reflect, and share together, leadership naturally begins to emerge. Administrators don't have to create every expert in their building. They just need to create a space for teachers' expertise to grow.
Looking back, I'm proud of the resources we shared, but it's the teachers' belief in themselves that makes me proudest. When teachers begin leading teachers, professional learning stops being just another box to check. It becomes part of the school culture, and that's where real change begins.
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