A Professional Learning Community (PLC) is a school where administrators and teachers continuously seek and share learning to increase their effectiveness for students and act on what they learn. PLCs are characterized by five dimensions: shared and supportive leadership, shared values and vision, collective learning and application of learning,…

This theme issue describes Maryetta School, a rural pre-K-8 school in Stilwell, Oklahoma, with an enrollment of approximately 500 students, mostly American Indians of Cherokee descent. Although the area has a high poverty rate and virtually all the students are judged to be at risk, the school has an impressive array of programs and facilities and…