Virtual PLC MasterClasses
Virtual Professional Learning Community (PLC) MasterClasses with Dr. Howie Knoff
With over 40 years of experience in schools across the world (and in every state in the United States), Dr. Howie has been mentored and worked alongside some of the greatest experts and best minds in the field of school improvement and effective school and schooling processes. He has also learned hands-on lessons through his own work--especially what to do and what NOT to do.
Dr. Howie brings this expertise to his specialized, virtual PLC MasterClass Groups, where he shares his experiences and expertise (sometimes with other experts in the field) so that participants can go to THE NEXT LEVEL of excellence in hours and not days, days and not months, and months and not years.
There are two types of PLC MasterClasses available:
- Cross-Country MasterClasses. MasterClasses that involve practitioners from across the US, Canada, and the world that are focused on a specific theme, that survey and address participants' specific needs, and that involve both MasterClass information and guided discussions.
- Single-District, School, or Department MasterClasses. MasterClasses that involve selected staff from a specific district, agency, department/unit, or school(s) and are dedicated to addressing specific "in-house" needs, goals, and outcomes in a specific content area--once again, involving MasterClass information, guided discussions, and action planning.
All PLC MasterClass groups are organized so that you are not only learning from Dr. Howie, but also from other participating PLC members.
- MasterClasses are scheduled on an as-needed or on-demand basis--virtually, any time a class has commitments from enough participants.
- Team or multi-member sign-up discounts are available.
- A National MasterClass PLC typically involves six weekly 90 minute sessions scheduled at an optimal time for PLC members. All presentations/meetings are recorded and posted on a private Facebook Page dedicated to the PLC and available to those who miss a session.
- District, department, or school-specific MasterClass PLCs involve a minimum of six weekly 90 minute sessions. More sessions, as determined, are available to address the specific needs and to accomplish the goals of the group.
- To design your own personalized Single-District PLC: Contact Dr. Howie
[See Descriptions of These PLC MasterClasses and Links to Participate Below]
PLC MasterClass Topics
- Improving Student Outcomes through School Improvement, Strategic Planning, and Systemic Change
- Improving Special Education Outcomes for Students with Disabilities: Results Driven Accountability
- School Discipline, Classroom Management, and Student Self-Management (Integrating Social-Emotional Learning and Positive Behavioral Support Systems, while Addressing Inequity and Disproportionality)
- Expanding Related Service Professionals' Roles to Improve Services to Students
- Designing and Implementing Effective Multi-Tiered Systems of Support
[See Descriptions of These PLC MasterClasses and Links to Participate Below]
Five PLC MasterClasses are Now Available
#1. Improving Student Outcomes through School Improvement, Strategic Planning, and Systemic Change
This PLC MasterClass is typically open to District Administrators, Directors, and Supervisors; School Principals, Assistant Principals, and Deans; and Relevant District/School Leadership Teams.
This MasterClass PLC Group will learn, discuss, and understand the science-to-practice approaches that help districts and schools use strategic planning, organizational development, and school improvement processes effectively. Topics will include: (a) Creating a shared leadership culture and facilitating staff buy-in; (b) Conducting needs assessments, SWOT analyses, and resource evaluations; (c) Using data-based decision making while tracking ESEA indicators and outcomes; (d) Developing effective multi-tiered academic and social, emotional, and behavioral instruction and intervention systems; (e) Implementing successful professional development, evaluation, coaching and mentoring, and staff feedback and remediation processes; (f) Involving home/family and community constituencies and resources; and (g) Planning for Realistic Implementation.
CLICK HERE FOR MORE INFORMATION OR TO ENROLL IN THIS MASTERCLASS' CROSS-COUNTRY PLC
#2. Improving Special Education Outcomes for Students with Disabilities: Results Driven Accountability
With Marcia Harding, Past Director of the Special Education Department, Arkansas Department of Education
This PLC MasterClass is typically open to District Administrators--Especially Student Services, Special Education, and Related Services Directors or Supervisors; and School Administrators, Multi-Tiered/Student Services Teams (including special education teachers), and Related Service Professionals (e.g., school psychologists, counselors, applied behavior analysts, others).
This MasterClass PLC Group will learn, discuss, and understand the science-to-practice approaches that help districts and schools deliver free, appropriate, and effective special education services (FAPE) in the least restrictive environments (LRE). This MasterClass will be co-led by Dr. Howie Knoff and Marcia Harding, the former Director of Special Education for the Arkansas Department of Education. Topics will include: (a) Implementing Effective Multi-Tiered Early Intervention Services and Special Education Eligibility Systems; (b) Writing IEPs that are Defensible with SMART goals that can be evaluated; (c) Increasing the rigor of instruction for Students with Disabilities; (d) Coordinating effective virtual and on-line learning systems for Students with Disabilities; (e) Providing FAPE in inclusive settings; (f) Addressing disciplinary and manifestation issues for students with behavioral challenges; (g) Dealing with disproportionality, inappropriate eligibility referrals, and the over-population of special education programs; and (h) Keeping districts out of due process and other court hearing, and preparing them if they occur.
CLICK HERE FOR MORE INFORMATION OR TO ENROLL IN THIS MASTERCLASS' CROSS-COUNTRY PLC
#3. School Discipline, Classroom Management, and Student Self-Management (Integrating Social-Emotional Learning and Positive Behavioral Support Systems, while Addressing Inequity and Disproportionality)
This PLC MasterClass is typically open to District/School Administrators, Assistant Principals/Deans, Related Service Professionals (e.g., school psychologists, counselors, applied behavior analysts, others), and classroom teachers.
This MasterClass PLC Group will learn, discuss, and understand the preschool through high school science-to-practice approaches that help districts and schools implement effective school discipline, classroom management, and student accountability systems. Topics will include: (a) Creating Shared Leadership and Staff Buy-In; (b) Nurturing Positive School/Classroom Climates and Prosocial Student and Staff Interactions; (c) Teaching Students Social, Emotional, and Behavioral Self-Management Skills; (d) Establishing Student Motivation and Accountability through the Behavioral Matrix Process; (e) Creating Safe Common School Areas; (f) Addressing Peer-Related Teasing, Taunting, Bullying, Harassment, Hazing, and Fighting; (g) Responding to Unique Students Situations (such as the impact of poverty, racial discrimination, disability, trauma, etc.); and (h) Planning for Realistic Implementation.
CLICK HERE FOR MORE INFORMATION OR TO ENROLL IN THIS MASTERCLASS' CROSS-COUNTRY PLC
#4. Expanding Related Service Professionals' Roles to Improve Services to Students
This PLC MasterClass is open to Related Service Professionals (e.g., school psychologists, counselors, social workers, special education teachers, others).
This MasterClass PLC Group's participants will learn, discuss, and know how to: (a) Take stock of their current professional and personal strengths and assets; (b) Understand districts and/or schools from an organizational or systemic perspective; (c) Evaluate the current strengths, gaps, and needs in their current work settings; (d) Collaborate and communicate with pivotal groups, teams, supervisors, and administrators in their work settings--making them indispensable; (e) Facilitate the planning needed to bring teams and units within their work settings to the "next level of excellence" relative to student outcomes; and (f) Integrate their desired and expanded roles and services into a realistic Action Plan.
CLICK HERE FOR MORE INFORMATION OR TO ENROLL IN THIS MASTERCLASS' CROSS-COUNTRY PLC
#5. Designing and Implementing Effective Multi-Tiered Systems of Support
This PLC MasterClass is typically open to District Administrators--Especially Student Services, Special Education, and Related Services Directors or Supervisors; and School Administrators, Multi-Tiered/Student Services Teams (including special education teachers), and Related Service Professionals (e.g., school psychologists, counselors, applied behavior analysts, others).
This MasterClass PLC Group will learn, discuss, and understand how to design and implement a science-to-practice multi-tiered system of support for students demonstrating academic struggles or social, emotional, or behavioral challenges. Topics will include: (a) the Elementary and Secondary Education Act's definition and criteria for an appropriate multi-tiered systems of services, supports, strategies, and interventions for students who are at-risk, underachieving, unresponsive, and/or unsuccessful; (b) a systematic district/school multi-tiered decision-making process that guides the assessment to intervention process when students are not academically or behaviorally succeeding in the classroom; (c) a school/classroom data-based functional assessment problem-solving process to assess specific students so that the underlying reasons for their difficulties are linked with high success instructional or intervention approaches; and (d) Planning for Realistic Implementation.
CLICK HERE FOR MORE INFORMATION OR TO ENROLL IN THIS MASTERCLASS' CROSS-COUNTRY PLC
Join One of Our High-Level PLC MasterClass Groups TODAY !!!
SIX WEEKLY SESSIONS (or more) for EACH PLC. . .
EACH 90-Minute Session contains up to a ONE-HOUR MasterClass from Dr. Howie !!!
A FREE BONUS for Every Sign-Up !
About Dr. Howie
Howard M. Knoff, Ph.D. (Howie) is the creator and Director of Project ACHIEVE, and an internationally-known innovator and hands-on practitioner in the areas of:
- District/School Success, Continuous Improvement, and Turn-Around (ESEA/ESSA)
- Strategic Planning, Organizational Development, and Shared Leadership (Committees/PLCs)
- School Discipline, Classroom Management, and Student Self-Management (PBIS/SEL/PBSS)
- Special Education (IDEA) Planning and Implementation: Multi-Tiered (MTSS/RtI) Services and Supports for Academically Struggling and Behaviorally Challenging Students
- Curricular Alignment, Differentiated Instruction, and Academic Interventions for Struggling Students
- Social, Emotional, and Behavioral (Social Skills) Instruction, and Strategic/Intensive Interventions for Challenging Students
- Conference Keynotes and Professional Development/In-Service Workshops
- Due Process Hearings and Special Education Litigation (Expert Witness Testimony and Representation)
- Grant Writing and External Funding Support
Over the past 40+ years, Howie has implemented Project ACHIEVE components in thousands of schools or districts— training in every state in the country. He has also been awarded over $40 million in federal, state, or foundation grants for this work. Awarded grants include: Safe Schools/Healthy Students, School Climate Transformation, Elementary and Secondary Counseling, Title I, Safe and Drug-Free School, and MetLife grants.
Howie served as the Director of the State Improvement Grant (SIG)/State Personnel Development Grant (SPDG) for the Arkansas Department of Education—Special Education Unit from 2003 through 2015. Here, he was directly responsible to the state's Special Education Director, and his Project ACHIEVE program was the foundation for the state's PBIS, Multi-Tiered Services (MTSS), and school improvement process (for all Focus schools).
Before his work in Arkansas, Howie was a university professor for 22 years (leaving as a tenured Full Professor) at two Research I institutions—the University of South Florida (USF) in Tampa, and the State University of New York at Albany. At USF, he was the Director of the School Psychology Program for 12 years, and he established and directed its Institute for School Reform, Integrated Services, and Child Mental Health and Educational Policy for over a decade.
Dr. Knoff received his Ph.D. degree from Syracuse University in 1980, and has worked as a practitioner, consultant, licensed private psychologist, and university professor since 1978. He has authored or co-authored over 25 books, published over 100 articles and book chapters, and delivered more than 4,000 papers and workshops in the U.S. and abroad. He worked with the Department of Defense Dependents School District during Desert Storm in 1991, has collaborated with the Southern Poverty Law Center, and has been an expert witness in federal and state court innumerable times, largely representing special education and other students in need.
A recipient of the Lightner Witmer Award from the American Psychological Association's School Psychology Division for early career contributions in 1990, Dr. Knoff also is a Fellow of that Division, a Nationally Certified School Psychologist, a Licensed Psychologist in Arkansas, and he has been trained in both crisis intervention and mediation processes. Frequently interviewed by the media, Dr. Knoff has been on the NBC Nightly News, numerous television and radio talk shows, and he was highlighted on an ABC News' 20/20 program "Being Teased, Taunted, and Bullied." Finally, Dr. Knoff was the 21st President of the National Association of School Psychologists which represents over 25,000 school psychologists nationwide.
