Approve Affiliation Agreement with American Productivity & Quality Center (APQC) Education to Participate in a New Benchmarking Project, "Evaluation Best Practices in Professional Learning Communities"- $5,000 (Curriculum and Instruction Division)

We request approval of the Affiliation Agreement with APQC Education to participate in a new benchmarking consortium project, "Evaluation Best Practices in Professional Learning Communities" (PLC), which will begin in August 2008 and end in December 2008. The project will look at components related to the design, implementation, and maintenance of PLCs from both district and school-level perspectives, and will provide our district with opportunities to collaborate with other districts across the nation, access PLC experts, and give us a clear snapshot of where we are in relation to other districts on PLCs. We will receive a final report from APQC Education that will provide information specific to our district. The information from this report will be used to further implement and sustain Professional Learning Communities in our district. Detailed information about this project is attached.

All District Goals and Critical Success Factors

Funds of $5,000 are included in the divisional operating budget for Curriculum and Instruction, Project 5005, School Improvement.

The effectiveness of this partnership will be measured by analysis of 2009 FCAT SSS gain scores.