LUMBERTON — Sandra Lopez Greenfield, PSRC’s Multilingual Learner Lead Teacher, has been invited to represent the school district in an Ignite Online Professional Learning Community (PLC) designed to support administrators and educators working with multilingual learners and their families.

The PLC that Mrs. Lopez Greenfield will participate in is called “Write Together: Building Bridges Through Words.” She will receive a stipend for participating in the yearlong program which begins in August. The PLC administered through the UNC Greensboro School of Education involves educators from across the state.

“All PLCs focus on promoting literacy among multilingual students and families. Educators participating in these PLCs have not only applied instructional strategies to support multilingual learners in schools, but also engaged with multilingual families through various partnership efforts in local communities,” said Dr. Jane He, Teacher Education and Higher Education professor at the UNC Greensboro School of Education.

“We are very glad to have Sandra joining one of our PLCs this coming year, and we are looking forward to working with educators, students, and families from Robeson County!” Dr. He said.

More than 25 public school units have participated in the PLCs since 2022, thanks to support from the National Professional Development Grant, she said.

Ignite PLC activities include “asynchronous PD [professional development] modules (9 hours), regular small group PLC sessions (1.5 hours per month for 8 months, a total of 12 hours), and whole-group sessions (1.5 hours per semester, a total of 3 hours),” according to information from UNC Greensboro’s website.

“Each PLC may choose to design family engagement events. Grant funds are also allocated for these events so teachers may purchase supplies such as books for families. In addition, PLCs may choose to involve family members in designing and sharing family engagement activities that promote literacy,” according to the UNCG website.

Mrs. Lopez Greenfield is optimistic about the knowledge she will gain through the PLC that she will use to better serve PSRC ML families.

“I look forward to participating in the Write Together: Building Bridges Through Words PLC and cultivating strategies that can positively impact PSRC and its Multilingual Learner Program,” said Sandra Lopez Greenfield. “This opportunity will help us in our efforts to promote literacy and support our multilingual learners and their families.”

Lopez Greenfield said the annual test that measures English language development has shown tremendous growth within the district with a total of 81 multilingual learners exiting the PSRC ML Program.

“This PLC on writing will help our district continue to show growth in the writing and the speaking domains which are normally the domains with the lowest scores,” she said. “This group of 81 students exiting the ML Program is the highest the PSRC ML Program has seen.”

She is confident that the strategies learned during this PLC will enrich the work of the ML Department across the school district, Lopez Greenfield said.