Powell Middle School staff members had a chance to demonstrate what makes the school successful on Dec. 7 when they received a visit from the Career Academy of South Bend, a charter school in Indiana. 

The Career Academy, which was marked as a low performing school had received a school improvement grant that will help them perform and develop their school. Career Academy has been seeing a growing interest from public school students, Powell Middle School Principal Kyle Rohrer said, and the school wants to become the best in the area. With collaboration from state associates and Solution Tree, the school researched Model Professional Learning Community At Work schools that could be helpful to its cause.

“Professional learning communities (PLCs) are schools that empower educators to work collaboratively in recurring cycles of collective inquiry and action research to achieve better results for the students they serve,” the Solution Tree website said.

PLC’s are centered around four questions:

* What is it we want our students to know and be able to do?

* How will we know each student has learned it?

* How will we respond when some students do not learn it?

* How will we extend the learning for students who have demonstrated proficiency? 

Career Academy is in the planning stages of a five year plan, Rohrer said — they were also intentional about coming to Wyoming and visiting other schools that are not exactly like theirs.

During the visit a team of four — the school’s principal, instructional facilitator, Career Technical Educator Teacher Leader and an eighth grade English Language Arts teacher — engaged in dialogue about Powell Middle’s “successes in the past years.”

Powell’s Middle School was designated National Blue Ribbon School in 2021 and a model PLC school in 2023. To be a model PLC school, a school must show a commitment to PLC at work concepts, implement them for at least three years, show clear evidence of improved student learning and provide yearly data that shows that the criteria is being continuously met, the Solution Tree website said.

Rohrer said that the visit was a testament to how fortunate Powell is that they have a schedule that allows them to collaborate, it “solidified how fortunate we are in the community, to have the setup we have and staff we do.”

At Career Academy the school runs from 8 a.m.- 4 p.m. daily and they are not able to have physical education every day for all students. Rohrer gave credit to Powell’s school board for supporting the schools and students. 

Career Academy was also interested in learning how to connect with students and student behavior.

In Powell the culture of its kids tends to shape new students, which is a testament to Powell’s kids, Rohrer said.

This year, Assistant Principal Chanler Buck was named the best in the state for 2023.

In November, Powell Middle was ranked as the third best middle school in the state of Wyoming by U.S. News and World Report. The organization looked at schools nationwide and then ranked them by state, in total 22,053 middle schools were analyzed nationwide.

“It’s fun just to see the recognition, our kids deserve it, our staff work tirelessly to deliver the best for the kids,” Rohrer said.