Explaining PLC and late Fridays

Freshmen must not only encounter Chantilly’s rotating class schedule, but also must adjust to late Friday mornings. The reason behind the delayed start is not a reward for the students after a long week, but actually to benefit all the teachers through a program called PLC.

“PLC stands for Professional Learning Community,” AP U.S. History teacher, Phil Cronin, said. “It’s a chance for teachers to get together and there’s a lot of teacher talk and collaborative learning.”

The program divides teachers by their subject department. For example, Biology teachers will be one team that collaborate in the morning, and all AP Language teachers will be in another. “Basically it’s chance for teachers who teach similar courses to make sure they’re all on the same page,” Cronin said.

PLC in Chantilly began about four years ago, based off research from others such as Marshall High School or Fairfax High School until it found a system that works. This collaborative learning creates unity across the classrooms for all subjects, eliminating the possibility of one class being more unfair than another; teachers compare grades, discuss standards, and exchange ideas.

“Chantilly is unique in that Mr.Kacur, who is our former principal, felt that PLC IS such a valuable tool in terms of helping teachers plan, he adjusted the schedule around having time on Fridays each week so the teachers could plan collectively,” Sub-School 2 Assistant Principal, Shawn Franks, said. “It all works out in terms of minutes so teachers would have at least one dedicated time per week to plan.”

While the teachers are working during the late start, this leaves students with an extra thirty six minutes of time to kill. During PLC, students are not allowed to go upstairs in order to not disrupt the team meetings.

“Most kids, because of traffic, just go in at regular time and hang out or go to Greenbriar and find something to eat,” Franks said.

Buses still come in at normal time to the school, but if students are lucky enough to find a different form of transportation, they can afford to sleep in or grab a late breakfast. Otherwise, students can wait and socialize with friends downstairs. In the Greenbriar Shopping Center, locations such as Starbucks, Manhattan Bagel and McDonald’s are popular, especially amongst upperclassmen.

“I like them [late Fridays], because I get to sleep in 15 more minutes and I go get a bagel from Greenbriar,” Senior Erica Spero said. “I think it’s going to be better this year because we don’t have to go upstairs in the morning since we’re seniors and we can all hang out. I was bothered when I was a freshman because you never know where your friends are in the morning.”

Written by Ariana Mollers and Lyzan Rashid

freshmen Academics, Online