When a school starts an EAST program, it joins a network of over 230 schools across Arkansas and beyond, and a community of EAST facilitators committed to learning from and investing in one another.

Collaboration among facilitators has been part of EAST from the beginning. Through a partnership with The Wellington Initiative, EAST has launched an organized Professional Learning Community (PLC) that delivers a structured experience throughout each calendar year, where ideas are shared and relationships are created.

This PLC uses student engagement as its driving focus. Participating programs anonymously collect student feedback on factors such as enjoyment and academic challenge in EAST and other classes. Facilitators analyze this data to inform conversations with students and fellow educators, helping guide meaningful changes that strengthen the classroom experience.  

Delene McCoy joined EAST’s PLC during her first year as a facilitator at Berryville Middle School and found great value in the data collection process, encouraging deeper conversations with her students.

“I found needs in year one that my students were able to express through the data collection, and I’m using those to make adjustments going into next year. ” McCoy said. “I believe that the changes will be beneficial to future students because it’s backed by real data. As a teacher, I’ve never had that before.”

Data from students provides facilitators like McCoy valuable feedback on what needs to happen in her EAST classroom, but it’s time and conversations spent with peers in the EAST PLC which provides her clearer direction and expectations for the future.

“It gives me a window into what’s coming down the pipe for me in the future,” McCoy said. “I’ve even shown this data to other teachers in my building and my Principal is excited about potentially using this kind of data collection in our school.”