School reform, initiated by the No Child Left Behind Act, has developed Common Core State Standards to promote both equity and excellence in education. The local problem that this study addressed involved understanding the effects of Common Core State Standards implementation on Professional Development and the use of Professional Learning Communities, as well as forming the framework for a structure that could be used to implement the Standards without affecting a school's budget. The purpose of this qualitative study using a questionnaire was twofold: first, to understand teachers' and administrators' perceptions of the implementation of State Standards, and second, to determine whether established Professional Learning Communities helped with Standards implementation. Participants were elementary teachers from a public school in a northeastern state suburban area; an elementary administrator also participated. Individual questions were used to gather the opinions of Tree Public School teachers about Professional Development and the implementation of the Common Core State Standards focused on curriculum instruction and pedagogy. The data gathered provided themes that addressed the research questions: how Professional Development training used to implement the Common Core State Standards impacted elementary teachers' perceptions regarding curriculum instruction and pedagogy; how Professional Development used to implement the Common Core State Standards impacted administrators' perceptions regarding curriculum instruction and pedagogy instruction; and specific components of teacher Professional Development that were essential to a learning environment. Those themes included the fact that current Professional Development had not helped implement grade standards, and the need for more program-specific Professional Development as well as time to collaborate and implement new strategies. The results of this study suggested the need for future Professional Development in academic areas, the need to bring in professionals from academic areas to provide support, and time to collaborate at grade levels to enhance student learning. Recommendations for future studies included the Professional Development necessary to implement the State Standards, content targeted areas through Professional Development, and the need to develop a measurement tool to assess Professional Development's efficacy in implementing the Core Standards. One recommendation for future study would be to gather perceptions from a wider variety of participants. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://bibliotheek.ehb.be:2222/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]