St. Helena Primary School has become the first local school to be recognized as a model Professional Learning Community, where teachers work in a collaborative environment to help students excel.
Teachers and administration gathered Wednesday afternoon to celebrate the honor after three years of submitting data that showed students’ academic progress.
The recognition came from Solution Tree, an educational company that works to empower educators to raise student achievement. Solution Tree provides the school with an associate who helps guide the learning of strategies needed to implement and sustain a Professional Learning Community. The company also offers events, online courses and curated books and videos.
“We’re in a unique community,” Rebekah Rocha, the school’s principal, said at the award ceremony. “We have high expectations for them and we want them to succeed.”
Rocha has been the principal for the last three years, since the start of the program.
The main concepts of a Professional Learning Community include that teachers have recognized the need for student improvement, have addressed students’ biggest academic challenges and, as a result, created solutions.
A Professional Learning Community differs from a typical school environment because it requires teachers to work and collaborate with one another outside the classroom in assessing their students’ needs.
Schools and districts are recognized after these concepts are implemented and demonstrated, along with proof of student improvement.
“We’re all here for all our students, not just the ones in our classroom,” said Julia Cia, a kindergarten teacher. “Everybody here is our student.”
The K-2 school highlighted improvements among its English language learners — the growing number of students who have become proficient in English and rising reading scores for second grade Latino students.
“There were basically four questions that we had to address,” Rocha said about the Solution Tree application process. “What systems do we have in place for students that are having difficulties and describing how our school works through the four questions in the PLC model.”
St. Helena Primary School has 177 students, of those students 47.5% are Hispanic or Latino and 22.6% are English language learners.
“All means all,” said Rocha, when discussing the inclusive success of each one of her students. “Regardless of income, race or learning disability.”
From 2022 to 2023, 32.65% of the school’s students were well-developed in English proficiency and 42.86% were moderately developed, leaving only 22.45% of students somewhat developed and 2.04% beginning to develop.
The new status of a Professional Learning Community means St. Helena will become a model school for others throughout California, and educators and teachers from different schools will visit to see the collaborative environment they’ve created.
A handful of faculty members and teachers attended Wednesday’s ceremony, including Lisa Palosi, board president of the St. Helena Unified School District, Cindy Pilar, founder and executive director of the California Principals’ Support Network and Barbara Nemko, superintendent of Napa County Schools.
Nemko described St. Helena’s recognition as a “catalyst that will be something that spreads to other schools.”
Kindergarten teacher Gladys Hernandez said the award is just the beginning for the St. Helena school.
“I think a good sign of a teacher is someone who is always thinking ‘how can I become a better educator’, so this feels nice, but it feels like what’s next,” Hernandez said. “This isn’t a stopping ground, this is how can we keep the PLC working so it doesn’t become stale.”
