Reimagining PLCs as Instructional Impact Teams

Some of my best days as a principal are spent in classrooms: working directly with teachers, division coaches, and content supervisors, puzzling over ways to improve experiences and outcomes for both students and teachers.

When division math and English language arts (ELA) coaching availability started to stretch thin at my school, I knew I needed to find an alternative structure for our routine meetings of division-coach-led professional learning communities (PLCs).

As a principal who not only prioritizes instructional leadership but finds tremendous joy in it, I was torn. Like many school leaders, I feel the constant pull between wanting to be fully present in instructional work and needing to manage the daily realities of running a school. Previously, the division coaches helped fill this gap, but as many of us are experiencing, human capital is spread thin. This tension led to a key question: How can we still build strong, aligned instructional practice across our building while having teachers serve as instructional leaders?

Our answer was to reimagine traditional PLCs as Instructional Impact Teams: teacher-led, trust-centered teams that bring math and ELA teachers together across grade levels to focus intentionally on instruction.

Outcomes and trust

Research on school improvement makes the case for this kind of structure—one based on relational trust. When teachers have high trust in colleagues and leaders, they are more willing to open their practice to observation and interpret feedback as support, rather than evaluation. At the same time, studies of professional learning consistently find that the most effective designs are content-focused, collaborative, job-embedded, and sustained over time, with clear links to curriculum and student outcomes. In other words: not isolated workshops, but ongoing work with real lessons, real students, and real problems of practice.

Instructional Impact Teams sit at the intersection of these two ideas. The heart of the change in our school was not a new program, but a different way of structuring time and leadership around math and literacy.

Not just another meeting

We began committing to a narrow, ambitious aim: strengthening Tier 1 instruction in math and ELA by building teacher leadership and creating meaningful vertical alignment from kindergarten through fifth grade. We explicitly told staff that Instructional Impact Teams were not “just another meeting,” but the principal place where we would set grade-level goals, study student work, examine common assessment data, and plan instructional responses together. That clarity helped reduce the sense of initiative overload and gave teachers a reason to invest.

The next decision was to move from division-coach grade-level PLCs to teacher-led teams. Instead of having one facilitator per grade-level PLC, we identified four teacher leaders, two in math and two in ELA. In each content area, one leader focused on grades K–2 and the other on grades 3–5. These teacher leaders co-led monthly Instructional Impact Team meetings with each grade level. This structure ensured that each meeting included school-specific content expertise and a vertical perspective—and that no single person carried the entire load.

Our school division supported the effort by providing small stipends, professional leave for meeting days, and division-level support. This was a natural alignment with the division, with one teacher for each content area also serving as our school’s division chair for math and ELA.

Providing resources

Naming someone a teacher leader, however, does not automatically equip them to run high-functioning instructional meetings. So we invested in facilitation skills training provided by a division specialist: how to design purposeful agendas, use protocols to keep the focus on student learning, balance participation, and guide the group from talk to concrete next steps. On meeting days, we arranged professional leave and substitute coverage so that leaders had time to plan, debrief, and refine future meetings. This sent an important message: The work was important enough to schedule and resource.

The core of the monthly meeting was spent examining student work samples, common assessment data, or observation notes tied to a specific focus, such as providing enrichment opportunities in math or increasing stamina in writing. Teacher leaders guided the group through simple, repeatable questions: What do we notice? Where are we as teachers or students struggling? What do we need more support with, or how can we adjust?

Space for experimentation

From there, the teams planned an instructional response: one or two strategies or adjustments that they would test before the next meeting. There was always a through line so that, for example, math discussions in third grade were connected to the types of questions being used in fourth and fifth grades. Meetings closed with a brief look ahead: What would teachers bring back, what support did they need, and how would we know whether the change was making a difference?

My own role as principal also needed to be intentionally defined. I meet with the teacher-leaders to determine meeting objectives and provide a space for guidance, and I attend most meetings, but not as the primary voice. Instead, I model curiosity and vulnerability, ask clarifying questions, and make sure that teacher-leaders feel seen and valued in that role. While teachers were encouraged to draw on their work in Instructional Impact Teams when setting professional goals or reflecting during evaluation conferences, the team itself was designed as a protected space for experimentation.

We also pay careful attention to how the work of these teams connects to larger systems without being swallowed up by them. Instructional Impact Team goals are aligned with our school improvement targets in math and ELA, and we highlight this work as the primary driver, not an add-on.

Gradual progress

We see small but meaningful shifts. Newer staff consistently see experienced colleagues wrestle publicly with instructional challenges. Conversations have become more concrete, as teachers refer to shared tasks and student work, rather than speaking in generalities about standards. The most exciting aspect has been seeing teachers make connections between what they aim to improve and the teachers in the building who can support this (and then plan time for peer observation).

We are still refining the model, but the fundamental design will remain steady: teacher-led, trust-centered, content-focused teams that meet once a month per content area to review evidence of student learning and adjust instruction.

By clarifying the purpose and structure of PLCs, investing in support, and showing up as learners rather than supervisors, principals can create the conditions for PLCs to become truly impactful. Reframing PLCs as Instructional Impact Teams makes them more than recurring appointments on a calendar. They become spaces where teachers lead, experiment, and see their collective effort reflected in students’ reading and math growth. And that is work worth making room for.