Your Teachers Say PLCs Are a Waste of Time. They May Be Right.

When teachers say PLCs are a waste of time, they are often describing their PLC accurately. The complaint is not the problem. It is information about the problem.

Picture a Wednesday afternoon.

A teacher has a stack of papers to grade and a lesson to finish for tomorrow. Instead, she is in the PLC meeting.

The team spends forty minutes on the field trip, the testing schedule, and a reminder about duty coverage. Someone shares a spreadsheet. Nobody decides anything about instruction.

She walks back to her classroom and says it to a colleague:

"That was a waste of time."

If you lead a school, you have probably heard some version of that sentence.

Teachers say it online too. When I post about PLCs on TikTok, one of the first comments is often some version of "PLCs are a waste of time." Then other teachers pile on. The frustration in those comments is real, and there is a lot of it.

It would be easy to scroll past them, or to reply with a defense of PLCs. I got curious instead.

Why do so many teachers feel this strongly? And why are they saying it in a comment section, to a stranger, instead of in the meeting?

When I read further, many of them say why. Nothing gets decided. The time keeps getting taken for other things. It is just one more box to check for admin. Those are not complaints about collaboration. They are descriptions of what their PLC time actually looks like.

And when teachers say it online instead of in the room, that may tell you something too. The meeting may not feel like a place where it is safe to say it.

The usual responses are to defend PLCs, to remind staff why they matter, or to quietly decide that some teachers just do not want to collaborate.

There is a more useful response.

Take the complaint seriously. It may be telling you exactly what is wrong.

In brief

• When teachers call PLCs a waste of time, they are often describing a PLC that is not producing anything for their students.
• Each version of the complaint points to a different condition: purpose, structure, facilitation, or follow-through.
• The first guess is often motivation. The evidence often points somewhere else.
• The goal is not to defend PLCs. It is to make them worth the time teachers give them.

On this page

• What teachers usually mean
• Why the first guess is often wrong
• What to do when you hear it
• The one question that tells you the most

What Teachers Usually Mean

"Waste of time" is a summary. Underneath it is something more specific.

Think of it like a check-engine light. Arguing with the light does not help. The useful response is to look under the hood.

These four conditions come from the VOYAGE PLC Health Check: Structure, Facilitation Skill, Shared Understanding, and Sustained Investment.

More than one condition can be weak at the same time. And the table is a starting point, not a diagnosis. The same complaint can point to different causes in different schools.

Take "We never decide anything." Sometimes the facilitator needs support. Sometimes the facilitator is capable, but the team has no real authority to make instructional decisions. That is a structure problem, not a skill problem. Check before you assume.

"We're just checking a box"

This version deserves its own attention, because it says something about leadership, not only about teams.

When PLC time is monitored mainly through attendance, agendas, and submitted notes, teachers learn what the system actually values. They give the system what it asks for.

I have seen this up close. Over-structure does not provoke resistance. It provokes quiet compliance. Agendas get followed. Notes get submitted. The meeting looks fine during a walkthrough. But the thinking is missing, and teachers know it.

DuFour and Reeves (2016) called this "PLC Lite": schools that adopt the outward forms of a professional learning community, such as renamed staff meetings and collaborative time spent on topics with no measurable effect on learning, without the core work underneath.

Holding PLC meetings and doing PLC work are not the same thing. When teachers say they are checking a box, they are often telling you they can see the difference.

Why the First Guess Is Often Wrong

When leaders hear "waste of time," the first assumption is often motivation. Teachers do not want to collaborate. They resist change. They would rather work alone.

Sometimes that is part of the picture. But it is often not the whole picture, and it can be the wrong place to start.

At the school where VOYAGE Horizons was developed, the first assumption was motivation. Teachers did not want to do PLCs. The evidence said otherwise. Teacher surveys showed they wanted the work. They did not have protected time, and they did not share one idea of what a PLC was. Observations added a third finding. PLC leaders were strong classroom teachers who had not been prepared to facilitate a conversation with differing viewpoints.

The complaint sounded like motivation. The causes were structure, shared understanding, and facilitation skill.

Those findings changed the response. Instead of trying to motivate teachers, I started a PLC focused on improving the PLC process itself. It became the VOYAGE Lead Team. That team trained PLC leaders as facilitators. Within a few months, the difference in our grade-level PLCs was visible, and early skepticism turned into buy-in. That is how VOYAGE Horizons was built.

That is why the question is skill, will, or system, and why the answer should come from evidence rather than assumption.

Much of what gets called resistance is misalignment. Teachers are looking for progress with their students. When PLC time is designed for compliance instead of progress, "waste of time" is a reasonable conclusion.

Treating the complaint as resistance also has a cost. Teachers who raise a real problem and hear a defense of PLCs can learn to stop raising it. Teacher questions are useful data, and that includes the frustrated ones.

What to Do When You Hear It

You do not need a new initiative. You need better information.

1. Ask what would make the time worth it

Instead of explaining why PLCs matter, ask teachers a different question:

"What would have to be true for PLC time to be worth your time?"

The answers will often name the condition directly: "If we actually decided something." "If it didn't get canceled for assemblies." "If we looked at our own students' work."

Then bring what you heard to your leadership team. Before deciding on a fix, ask: Who are we missing? Is this a recurring barrier? Could our response have consequences we did not intend?

2. Sit in on a few PLCs

Observe several teams, not just one. Notice where the time goes. Is the team examining student work, or handling logistics? Does the meeting end with a decision? Does last meeting's decision come back up?

What leaders look for in a PLC matters more than whether the meeting happened.

3. Check the four conditions

Use what you heard and saw to identify which condition is weakest. The PLC Health Check can help a school locate it in a few minutes.

Then respond to that condition.

• If time is the issue, protect it, and stop pulling it for other demands. Time is not always the root problem, but unprotected time sends a clear message about priority.
• If purpose is the issue, say plainly what PLC time is for, and change what you monitor to match. Look for decisions and follow-through, not just completed agendas.
• If facilitation is the issue, support the facilitators. Leading peers is a skill, and it can be taught.
• If follow-through is the issue, ask what the system stopped providing after the launch. Strong PD does not sustain itself.

4. Take something off the plate

If PLC time is going to matter, something else may have to give. Look at what else is being asked of teams during that time, and remove what does not belong there.

A simple filter helps. For each item competing for PLC time, ask how urgent it is, how much it affects student learning, and how feasible it is to handle somewhere else. Some logistics need real coordination. The question is whether they belong in time protected for instructional work. If an item can go in an email, it should.

The master schedule becomes a mirror of the school's values. So does the PLC agenda.

The One Question That Tells You the Most

If you want one place to start, ask a teacher this:

"What is one thing you changed in your classroom because of your PLC's work last month?"

If teachers can answer, PLC work is reaching classrooms. That is a good sign, but it is not the finish line. The next question is whether the change helped students. A strong PLC checks that too, by reassessing and looking at the results together.

If teachers cannot answer, PLC work is probably not reaching classrooms yet. The complaint may be more accurate than anyone wants to admit. And now you know where to look.

Do not wait for a crisis to ask it. Build it into a regular reflection. Each trimester or quarter, ask teams: How have our PLCs influenced your approach in the classroom? What changes have you made based on our work together? Have you noticed any results for students?

Then share what you hear. When a team's change works, say so. Teachers are more willing to give time to work they can see paying off.

Make It Worth the Time

PLCs ask a lot of teachers. They ask for time teachers could spend grading, planning, or simply catching their breath.

That trade is only fair if the time gives something back.

When teachers say PLCs are a waste of time, the most useful response is not to defend PLCs.

It is to make them worth the time teachers give them.

How VOYAGE Horizons Supports This Work

Start with the VOYAGE PLC Health Check. It helps school leaders locate which condition is weakest: Structure, Facilitation Skill, Shared Understanding, or Sustained Investment.

The Source of the Issue, the first VOYAGE Horizons module, takes the next step. It helps a leadership team ask whether a skill, knowledge, motivation, or resource gap is behind the weak condition, before deciding how to respond.

The Facilitator, the second module, prepares PLC leaders to run meetings that end in decisions and includes the trimester reflection questions above.

Learn more about VOYAGE Horizons or explore additional PLC implementation resources from Juniper Consulting LLC.

Common Questions About Whether PLCs Are Worth the Time

Are PLCs a waste of time?

They can be, when the time does not produce anything for students. A PLC that spends its meetings on logistics, never reaches a decision, or exists mainly to satisfy expectations from above is often experienced as a waste of time. When a PLC examines student work, makes instructional decisions together, and follows up on them, teachers are much more likely to find the time worthwhile.

Why do teachers say PLCs are a waste of time?

The complaint usually points to a specific condition. "We never decide anything" may point to facilitation skill. "It keeps getting canceled" may point to structure. "It's just another staff meeting" or "We're just checking a box" may point to a lack of shared understanding about what PLC time is for. "Nothing ever comes of it" may point to sustained investment and follow-through.

What is PLC Lite?

DuFour and Reeves (2016) used the term "PLC Lite" for schools that adopt the outward forms of a professional learning community, such as renamed staff meetings and collaborative time on topics with no measurable effect on learning, without the core work underneath.

Is teacher resistance the reason PLCs fail?

Often not on its own. What looks like resistance is frequently a response to conditions the school can change: unprotected time, no shared purpose for PLC time, or facilitators who have not been prepared to lead peers. Gathering evidence through surveys and observations helps separate a motivation problem from a system problem.

What should a school leader do when teachers say PLCs are a waste of time?

Take the complaint seriously. Ask teachers what would make the time worth it, sit in on several PLCs, and check which condition is weakest: Structure, Facilitation Skill, Shared Understanding, or Sustained Investment. Then respond to that condition rather than defending PLCs in general.

How can you tell if a PLC is worth the time?

A useful starting question is: "What is one thing you changed in your classroom because of your PLC's work last month?" Answers show whether PLC work is reaching classrooms. To know whether it is helping students, the team also needs to reassess and review the results of those changes.

References

DuFour, R., & Reeves, D. (2016). The futility of PLC Lite. Phi Delta Kappan, 97(6), 69-71. https://doi.org/10.1177/0031721716636878