Instructional coaching is most effective when instructional coaches work with district and building leaders to align their efforts to school goals and encourage teachers to work with the coach 1,2,3,4. A few months ago, I wrote a post with 4 ways school administrators can support instructional coaches. This post is dedicated to providing instructional coaches with tips for working with their school admin.
As an instructional coach, building relationships with your principals and admin can be tricky. As my own 9+ years experience and research shows, coaches are most effective when their building principal fully understands the role and responsibilities of a coach and encourages teachers to work with the coach. Furthermore, coaches are least effective in buildings where the principal does not understand the role and responsibilities of a coach, and in turn, does not encourage teachers to work with the coach. That’s what makes having a positive relationship with admin a high priority for an instructional coach.
Below are some of the tips I have found go a long way in helping coaches help themselves when it comes to working with administrators.
- Make their lives easier! School principals and district administrators are constantly bombarded with interruptions, redirection, and a never ending to-do list between multiple stakeholder groups. Your role as a coach is really to help them carry out their instructional goals for teachers in the building. Everything you do should be in pursuit of supporting those goals. You are the worker bee. Any chance you get, do the brunt of the work for them. For example. if you’re trying to get a new lunch & learn series off the ground, and want initial communication to come from them, then type the email for them so they simply have to forward or copy and paste as opposed to asking them to write and send an email on your behalf. If you need them to seek approval from their superior for funding, do the research and write the proposal for them. If you’re paying half as much attention to making your principal’s life easier as you are to supporting your teachers, you’ll be in good shape.
- Go with a plan. I always advise my team to go with a plan in hand, but be ready to throw it out if needed. For example, if your school is pushing to have common expectations for use of Google Classroom across the board, or has a big instructional focus on personalized learning, how will all of your work help support those goals? When are possible times that you could take advantage of group professional development or offer optional PD sessions for teachers? Will you be conducting formal coaching cycles? If so, when will they start and end, which buildings will you target, in what ways do you need admin support? Did a new building just get all new AV equipment for their classroom? How will you provide extra support to that building to ensure teachers are comfortable using their new tools in their instruction? Have you identified some serious inequities in how students are using technology across classrooms (active vs passive)? How do you plan to address the issue and provide necessary support to teachers? If an administrator can simply offer some feedback, make minor changes, and then bless your plan, you’ll be a lot more likely to get something off the ground and rolling. Why? Because you made their life easier by coming prepared!
- When in doubt, over communicate. My favorite quote about communication by George Bernard Shaw is my mantra when communicating with admin, “The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.”
First, figure out the best way to communicate with them. Do they prefer quick in person check ins, text, email? Try to set a standing (bi-weekly or monthly depending on your schedule) meeting with them.
Then, it’s important to highlight all the bright spots from your work with teachers. I always recommend sharing it with admin in a way that builds up the teacher, rather than self-promotes your involvement. For example, “Did you see the amazing lesson Ms. Smith is leading with her 5th graders today? She has worked so hard. You should check it out.” versus “I helped Ms. Smith for the last 3 weeks on this current unit. It was touch and go there for a while, but I finally got her to a point that she was ready. Go check it out.” We want to be sure our admin are aware of our work around the buildings in a way that builds the confidence of the teachers we serve.
Finally, when you have an ask or need their support, make it very clear what you are asking, when you are requesting it by, and how it will help. - Clearly articulate how your work supports their efforts. This goes back to the importance of ensuring admin clearly understand your role and responsibilities. Oftentimes, if there is a misunderstanding about the role of a tech coach, admin may think you are there to support break fix problems or simply support one single tech platform. They may not realize just how varied your skill set is and how many instructional initiatives coaches can support. If you are clearly connecting dots that your lunch and learn series supports skills and strategies required by the new teacher evaluation system they have been implementing, or how you’ve been working with the social studies department to engage local experts that will also support the school’s goals around community engagement, then you will be seen as someone they need to keep around to continue to find success. Of course, having readily available data to help steer these conversations never hurts, either.
If you’re looking for more support as a coach to help you navigate tough situations like this, then check out the Coaches Camp that my team is offering this summer. It’s a jam-packed, two-day training designed specifically for instructional coaches.
What strategies have you found the most success is supporting and building positive relationships with your admin? Drop your ideas in the comments below.
Tech To You Later!
-Katie, Ed.D.
References
- Gallucci, C., DeVoogt Van Lare, M., Yoon, I. H., & Boatright, B. (2010). Instructional coaching: Building theory about the role and organizational support for professional learning. American Educational Research Journal, 47(4), 919–963.
- Russell, J. L., Correnti, R., Stein, M. K., Bill, V., Hannan, M., Schwartz, N., Booker, L. N., Pratt, N. R., & Matthis, C. (2020). Learning from adaptation to support instructional improvement at scale: Understanding coach adaptation in the TN Mathematics Coaching Project. American Educational Research Journal, 57(1), 148–187.
- Shanklin, N. (2007). What supports do literacy coaches need from administrators in order to succeed?. Literacy Coaching Clearinghouse, National Council of Teachers of English 1111 West Kenyon Road, Urbana, IL 61801.
- Stein, M.K., Russell, J.L., Bill, V., Correnti, R., & Speranzo, L. (2021). Coach learning to help teachers learn to enact conceptually rich, student-focused mathematics lessons. Journal of Mathematics Teacher Education.