Back to Basics: Building Roll-Out

Julie Schwartzbauer contributed today's post. Read Julie's previous posts to understand more about her district's Back to Basics plan.

Appleton has 16 elementary schools.  Each school has at least one literacy coach. Our larger schools have two.  Most of our coaches have a divided role; they are part interventionist and part coach. The focus of their coaching is not only the Back to Basics components, but also that of meeting the needs of individual teachers.

When we rolled out the first Back to Basics component to our coaches, we developed a shared beliefs document along with additional resources that coaches could share with their teachers.  As part of the Back to Basics plan, coaches were encouraged to visit classrooms to observe teachers implementing the component. These visits were meant to be seen as informative, not evaluative.  As I stated in my previous post, it was critical to have principal support.  

After the classroom visits, coaches would meet with their coaching PLC, concentrating their discussion on the following questions:

• What made the instruction in the focus component good?
• What did you notice about the teacher’s use of language, planning, instruction, etc.?
• What did you notice about teacher/student interaction?
• What did you notice about student engagement?

Coaches were then asked to develop a coaching plan for their building, focusing on the component.  Coaches were to use the Coaching Continuum to determine how they would support their teachers.  Would they offer support through planning, modeling, formative assessments, sharing of resources, analyzing data and student work, co-teaching, presentations, etc.?  As district coaches, we felt it was our job to “clear the path.”  We wanted to support building coaches throughout the building roll-out, and help them overcome any obstacles that might get in the way.

When coaches came back to the coaching PLC, we were disheartened to find that things did not go as smoothly as we had hoped.

In my next post, I will share the steps we took to improve our building roll-out plan.