Monday, March 11, 2024
Article submitted by Amy Carriere, CESA 10 Educational Consultant and Coach
Highlighting the work of Heather Mathurne and Angela Kent
Cadott School District, nestled in rural, Mid-Northern Wisconsin, along Highway 29, has been working on developing and refining its coaching system for over 5 years. They had an instructional coach at the elementary level and started working through the Research to Practice Inclusive Communities grant in 2019. This grant looked at systems-level work around linked team structures, coaching systems, and inclusive service delivery.
The Cadott District Leadership Team started analyzing their coaching system through the use of the Coaching System Development Worksheet that looks at the different levels of implementation. Having a system to continually reflect on coaching practices and system goals helps a district’s coaching systems continue to grow. Many things happened simultaneously around building coaching capacity and culture within the district. From leadership and coaching teams attending AWSA’s Impactful Coaching and RTI Coaching for Leadership and Change (now Coaching: A Cornerstone for Change) to sharing with staff the value of coaching (Joyce and Showers (2002) and Hopkins, Munro, and Craig (2011), on implementation of new skills in classrooms and on teams.
At the individual level, the instructional coaches started developing the vision and mission of what they saw for coaching in Cadott School District. There was a natural system in place at the elementary level for the instructional coach to attend and coach around the PDSA cycle at the grade level PLCs. This is where they started with building in the interpersonal level, highly leveraging, receiving and utilizing feedback from coaching sessions and any inservice around implementation of new effective strategies that aligned with the district initiatives. At the system, or organizational level, the coaches were invited to share the mission and vision of coaching, an overview of “What is Coaching?” along with a handout that they developed. The district also developed a coaching job description.
Cadott currently has a K-12 math instructional coach and a K-12 literacy instructional coach. Both have additional roles/job duties outside of coaching. They both coach about 8 teams consistently (K-6 grade level PLCs and the math PLC at junior/senior high and the ELA PLC at junior/senior high) along with individual coaching sessions as requested. Staff are encouraged to sign up for 1:1 coaching cycles. A coaching cycle begins with a request. The coaches also developed an infosheet on what services were offered within their coaching system to help staff see the many levels of support that could be offered within the coaching system. The coach and client/team then meet to set a goal. After that, there are anywhere from one to several coaching sessions to work toward the team/individual goal. Feedback to staff and teams is given throughout the process using a feedback form. This year many of those 1:1 sessions have covered topics around behavior, curriculum, instructional practices, and intervention.
Some of the challenges that the coaches have had include being stretched too thin due to the multiple hats they wear, buy-in on coaching at the individual and junior/senior high level, and accessing ongoing support to continue growing coaching skills and system development. To address the challenges, both coaches attend the local CESA Coaching Network for ongoing learning and support, knowing that the learning never ends and the improvements to the system always need to be revisited. The coaches also have plans to start some 'learning walks' at the jr/sr high in an attempt to get more buy-in and build relationships. They will be providing feedback on learning targets, vocabulary instruction, and questioning. They also hope to branch out to the elective/specials teachers.
On the flip side, there are so many benefits from their coaching system. The fact that they have used a reflective approach at the individual, interpersonal, and institutional levels promotes sustainability. The coaches reflected that so MANY teachers either tell them or leave them notes about how appreciative they are for the support. Heather states, “Some of our new teachers felt pretty lost at the beginning of the year, and we were able to help with that. One teacher, in particular, has a family member who teaches in a different district and she can't believe the support we offer our teachers here.” Besides teacher growth in instructional practices, they have also seen student growth directly impacted by the coaching cycles/support in many different instances. Three things they find integral to the success of their coaching system in Cadott are administration support, relationships with teachers/staff, and reflection.