Game Plan: A Playbook for Developing Winning PLCs at Work - implement a meaningful focus on your school culture (Teaching in Focus) - Softcover

Héctor García, PhD, is currently a superintendent for a suburban unit school district in Illinois. He has been an educator for more than twenty years, with a background as a teacher, high school principal, and district administrator in a variety of school settings. Héctor's educational experiences range from working in a predominantly low-income school to working in some of the most affluent and high-performing schools, including Adlai E. Stevenson High School in Lincolnshire, Illinois.

Héctor's strong belief in developing schools with a culture of high expectations and collaboration has resulted in marked improvement in various schools. He has also worked with educational leaders to make curricula more relevant to minority students as well as countless teachers to raise the academic achievement for all students at both the local and national level. Héctor has presented through¬out the United States on topics ranging from PLC implementation to developing a more effective school culture.

Katherine McCluskey is currently the director of bilingual, foreign language, and English as a second language (ESL) programming for a suburban school district in Illinois that serves grades preK to 8. As a former teacher in K-12 settings, Katherine has worked with students of diverse socioeconomic status in districts of various sizes. She has also trained, coached, and led staff with a wide range of professional experience. As a district administrator, she has led such key initiatives as a K-8 dual language program, foreign language programming for elementary school, and ESL and bilingual programming for preschool through twelfth grade. She has also led districtwide curriculum writing efforts, developed response to intervention protocols, and established professional learning communities in preK-12 settings that have resulted in academic success for students. Katherine has presented at local and state conferences, contributed to the All Things PLC site, published research with the Center for Applied Linguistics, and been recognized for her work with English learner students. Katherine's passion and commitment to student achievement, in particular the achievement of minority and low-income students, has contributed to her ability to establish highly effective and collaborative cultures focused on the success of all students.

Shelley Taylor is a director at the Consortium for Educational Change (CEC) in Illinois, a nonprofit organization that works with teachers, school and district administrators, school boards, and unions to improve student learning and achievement. As the Core Service Director for Teacher Effectiveness, Shelley supports CEC's work through design, development and consulting training around teacher evaluation, new teacher induction and mentoring, and co-teaching and inclusion practices. Shelley supports CEC member and nonmember school districts with facilitation and professional development training. Recently, Shelley was a remediation specialist assisting districts with the Growth Through Learning teacher evaluation performance training required for prequalification to meet the (PERA) mandates as a qualified professional practice evaluator in Illinois.

Shelley has sixteen years of diverse experience in K-12 public schools as a teacher, instructional coach, and district administrator. In these roles, she was successful in creating and implementing staff development and mentoring in the areas of RTI, PLCs, instructional coaching, common assessments, balanced literacy, and co-teaching. She specifically focused on developing long-term solutions for growth and improvement in these areas. Working to improve the capacity of teachers and school leaders, Shelley has designed tools for implementing the Danielson Framework for Teaching that help support teacher growth