Over the past year a half, our staff has deeply engaged in embracing a professional learning community (PLC) philosophy. Our teachers meet approximately twice per month during our 1:00pm student dismissal times for the purpose of collaborating around curriculum alignment, authoring assessments and looking at formative assessment data. Using a “loose-tight” framework, each collaborative learning team is in a different place along the PLC journey based upon their team make-up and students. We are tight in that the teams must focus their work on several questions: