Becoming a TLI fellow is more than just coaching, it also means being part of a community of leaders dedicated to real change

Director of Leader Programs Nina Fitzerman Blue understands how difficult and lonely school leadership can be. As a former school leader herself she knows it can feel alienating when you don’t always have someone to consult and check your decision making. TLI’s School Leadership Cohort is designed to address this need by making space for a cohort of leaders to collaborate, problem solve, and network.

Throughout the year-long fellowship, leaders have multiple opportunities to learn alongside their colleagues. The fellowship begins with a combination virtual and in-person summer session where leaders develop the foundations for high leverage growth, and collaboration continues throughout six off-site professional development days throughout the year.

Leaders quickly develop trusting relationships within their cohort that become just as valuable as one-on-one time with their coach. Superintendent Kiana Smith says that the TLI cohort, “Truly allows me to have a friend in this work and a partner in this work because it is lonely as the superintendent…you contemplate so many things and you don’t want that pressure to be felt with your [colleagues].” Fellows often find themselves calling and texting peers to brainstorm ideas, ask advice or share resources. 
Too often school administrators are not offered sufficient opportunities to learn and grow, which is critical for long-term success. Joining the TLI School Leadership Cohort means becoming part of a community of educators dedicated to improving their practice and growing their schools. Click to hear more about becoming part of TLI’s leadership network.

Want more information? We’d love to hear from you.

It’s not one-size-fits all: TLI coaching is listening, relationship building and adapting to real needs.

Assistant Principal Staci Brown is a 2020 School Leader Cohort member.

Like good teaching, effective coaching is built on trusting relationships between coach and school leader. 

This concept guides TLI’s work with fellows from the onset. Nina Fitzerman-Blue, Director of Leader Programs, explains “I am here to make sure you are not failing as a leader. My entire job is to make you better.” 

TLI’s School Leader Cohort Fellows feel this deeply. Assistant Principal Staci Brown says that unlike other professional development approaches that offer ready-made programs, TLI coaches listen to your needs and cultivate collaborative relationships. Weekly building visits and in-depth conversations help foster open and honest conversations that lead to real growth and change. 

While at first some find it intimidating to meet with coaches weekly, most fellows report that because TLI’s sole focus is growth and development (not evaluation) they can be uniquely open about their professional needs. Through this relationship-centered approach TLI empowers fellows to interrogate their own practices, so they have the tools for growth beyond the fellowship. 

 Listen to why 2019 School Leader Fellows were ready to be coached.

Do you have questions about TLI’s intensive leader coaching? We’d love to hear from you.

DIY Instructional Leadership Team

In many Oklahoma districts, a single principal can lead a 40-member staff in charge of nearly 600 students. With such a demanding job, principals need a team who’s committed to building instructional skills and getting things done even when the principal is pulled away. 

Typically, instructional leadership teams include teacher leaders, instructional coaches, additional administrators, and reading specialists. While conventional wisdom usually pulls one representative per grade level, consider selecting leadership for performance, coachability, and influence instead. After all, some grades may easily contribute two strong contributors while others may yield none. The big idea is to build a reliable, get-it-done kind of team so selecting leadership based on grade-level alone risks the efficacy and reputation of the team.

What does an instructional leadership team do?

Denver Public Schools and Leading Educators provide strong models for what instructional leadership teams do. The overall goal is to support change in response to data including roles like these:

  • Gather and analyze data related to school-wide trends, school culture, student achievement data, and strategic priorities
  • Develop and monitor strategic plans 
  • Set vision for and maintain school culture
  • Create curriculum and assessment strategy
  • Calibrate on tools and protocols (TLE, observation/feedback protocols, data protocols)
  • Plan and progress monitor professional learning

How to establish a strong instructional leadership team

Building a strong instructional leadership team moves responsibility away from the principal towards distributive leadership. But it takes some work to get there. First, principals need to select and train leaders. Decide what traits matter and what skills you can train.

Distributive leadership is a critical part of a school’s success but it takes consistent work. By establishing clear responsibilities, training the team, and supporting their work, a principal can shift their focus from leading the entire school to developing the capacity of a few.

Coaching Confidentiality vs. Principal Collaboration: Where Is The Line?

Although instructional coaching evolved from research on teacher supervision and instructional leadership (Knight, 2009; Neumerski, 2013), most instructional coaches do not have the formal authority to evaluate teachers. In contrast to principals who also coach teachers, instructional coaches are usually positioned in a non-evaluatory, supportive role. 

Despite shared teacher and school improvement goals, the difference in evaluatory roles can make it easy to clash over the question of how much to share and with whom. 

Coaching guru Elena Aguilar (2013) suggests that coaching must be confidential to maintain a positive and trusting relationship between the coach and teacher. From a teacher’s perspective, it makes sense. With the promise of confidentiality, teachers can share openly and vulnerably with their coach in ways that they might not want to share with a boss or evaluating supervisor. 

Unfortunately, coaching confidentiality can lead to mistrust between instructional coach and principal. After all, a principal who is expecting continuous classroom growth may get frustrated to be left out of the loop and unaware of specific classroom issues. It can also lead to frustration for the teacher if instructional coaches and principals are sending conflicting or mis-aligned messages.  

To balance the need for trusting coaching relationships and school leader collaboration, we recommend sharing high-level analysis about classroom performance, action steps, and look fors. For example, a coach might share that a teacher is focused on giving consistent consequences and flag that the principal should look for a clear direction followed by narration before a consequence. With that information, the principal can communicate clearly and positively reinforce progress and recognize accomplishments, as Todd Whitaker (2015) recommends. 

With this delicate balance, the instructional coach can still maintain a degree of teacher confidentiality too. The instructional coach needn’t share the teacher’s concerns about making class fun if she’s always giving consequences or that the teacher is stressed about the lesson plan requirements. 

Regardless of where you fall in the confidentiality spectrum, teachers deserve to know what will be communicated and to whom. We suggest re-visiting the question of confidentiality early and often to make sure everyone knows the expectations. 

References:

Aguilar, E. (2013). The art of coaching: effective strategies for school transformation. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Knight, J. (2009). Coaching: Approaches and perspectives. Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Corwin Press.

Neumerski, C. (2013). Rethinking Instructional Leadership, a Review: What Do We Know About Principal, Teacher, and Coach Instructional Leadership, and Where Should We Go from Here? Educational Administration Quarterly, 49(2), 310-347.

Whitaker, T. (2015). What great principals do differently: eighteen things that matter most. New York, NY: Routledge.

3 Reasons School Leaders Fail At Change Management

This is the first in a 6-week change management series in which TLI staff share key leadership moves for managing successful school-based change. Catch the series introduction here.

When former Hamilton Elementary principal Tera Carr entered her new school, she felt the urge to make huge changes during her first year on the job. With rock-bottom test scores, constant discipline issues, and growing community concern, sometimes it felt like her new school post was more firefighter than school leader. 

Recently, Carr reminisced with the TLI School Leader Cohort about the process of moving from a novice leader to strong instructional leader. Although she wanted to tackle all the problems at once, she knew she couldn’t. Instead, Carr careful outlined yearly priorities and worked relentlessly towards those narrow goals, building staff skill, knowledge, and mindsets along the way. 

Unfortunately, not all school leaders manage change as carefully and successfully as Carr. 

To kick off our change management blog series, we’ve rounded up three of the main stumbling blocks for managing school-based change.

Change Fail 1: Taking on Too Much

We hear from lots of leaders eager to implement a litany of changes to improve student outcomes and address community concerns. Other times, a long list of changes is a result of district-level mandates, initiatives, and “roll out plans” influenced by parent groups, district leadership, and the ever-changing legislative changes. But taking on too much change at once is a recipe for failure. 

Successful change management must include cut-throat prioritization to make time for crucial skill building, protect faculty from initiative overload, and avoid making new changes feel like “just one more thing.”

Change Fail 2: Not Planning for the Change

Tulsa’s hometown hero Will Rogers quipped that “vision, without a plan, is hallucination.” Successful changes require a plan that considers culture, people, fear, pain, resources, and deep analysis of the change itself.  

Consider the Oklahoma district that invested $200,000 in student-facing devices. Two years later, a quick walk through the school revealed unopened boxes of devices stuffed under counters and stacked in closets. Resources alone weren’t enough to float a technology initiative.   To avoid this pitfall, school leaders must establish a clear plan for how to accomplish a proposed change and deeply invest stakeholders at every level.  

Change Fail 3: Forgetting Competence-Building

Effective change management keeps an unrelenting focus on people. After all, the risks are high. Poorly managed change could alienate teachers and contribute to an unhealthy school culture, especially in Oklahoma’s already-precarious teacher context. Oklahoma State Department of Education points out that  a declining work environment is one of the main reasons teachers leave the profession (McFeron, 2018). A full 40% of teachers reported a lack of support by school-based administrators as a major factor for leaving. 

Instead of assuming that staff can adapt to a proposed change without support or parroting phrases about “trusting teachers” or “letting teachers figure it out,”  create a plan to offer teachers the support and feedback mechanisms they need. After all, good intentions and great ideas alone don’t give teachers and staff the support they need to successfully navigate change. 

Remember that change often requires new skills and habits. Forgetting about competence-building during a change leaves staff feeling unsupported and unsuccessful.     

Although we’ve observed plenty of changes gone the way of the unopened device boxes, school leaders like Carr remind us that even the biggest proposed changes can be managed successfully. Fortunately, research and experience offers a plethora of wisdom to manage school-based change at any site. Follow the blog series as we unfold specific leader moves and resources for managing change. 

References: McFeron, P. (2018). A Survey of 5,487 Holders of Oklahoma Teaching Certificates Not Teaching in Ok Public Schools Under the Age of 65 Online surveys conducted September 26 – October 16, 2017.  https://sde.ok.gov/sites/default/files/documents/files/Teacher Survey Report – CHS and Associates_0.pdf



School-based Change Management Kick-off

By Dr. Joanna Lein

Schools leaders are constantly thinking about change. Whether it’s new standards, resources, priorities, or curriculum, school changes require thoughtful roll-outs if you want the new change to be successful.

Change management is such a prominent part of the school leader job that Oklahoma’s most prevalent principal evaluation tool, McRel, uses “Managing Change” as one of its three main rubric areas (along with “Purposeful Community” and “Focus of Leadership).

Still, managing change is tricky. During a recent social media conversation, I watched as teachers and administration batted around examples of failed changes in their schools. The results varied from frustrated staff members to initiative overload, burnout, and even all-out mutiny. It wasn’t all disappointment though. Sprinkled throughout the conversation were stories of enduring change. 

One teacher excitedly recalled the year her principal pushed teachers to integrate an ambitious set of differentiation strategies. Step by step, the teachers learned about the idea, researched strategies, practiced implementation, observed their colleagues, and received principal feedback. “At every faculty meeting,” she wrote, “we drew a name of a teacher to observe, fill out a reflection, and turn it in. Eighth grade teachers and kindergarten teachers had to observe each other.” Not even the grumpiest of teachers was exempt. The most amazing part for the teacher writer? How quickly the principal invested an entire faculty to take ownership and be accountable for differentiation strategies in every lesson at every grade level. 

At TLI, we spend a lot of time helping leaders strategically plan for change. Now, we’re excited to bring a taste of that work to you! Over the next six weeks, we’re rolling out a series of blog posts to introduce you to the big pieces of school-base change management.

Whether you’re still a little gun shy from a botched change, eagerly planning for innovation next semester, or barely making it through a difficult change right now, join us for some weekly change management wisdom. 

Looking for a specific post? Check out change management posts on assessing the scope, greasing the skids, and top reasons change management fails.



What is an Instructional Coach?

The instructional coach.

In the last decade, school districts have invested a lot of money, time, and energy into building instructional coaching programs. Districts may have reading coaches, math coaches, turnaround coaches, classroom management coaches, gifted specialists, or general instructional coaches. Sometimes coaching positions are tailored to grant-funded priorities, focused on specific implementation efforts, or aimed at student-level needs.

Too often, instructional coaches are used in ways that do not directly support the instructional goals of the school. Sometimes, coaches are tasked with administrative tasks that directly detract from their core duties and, subsequently, their effectiveness. Other times, their schedules are filled with lunch duties and student management crisis instead of teacher coaching cycles. When coaches en up as a dumping ground for unfinished tasks, the work quality often suffers in all areas.

To best meet the needs of a school, leaders must be clear on the instructional coach role and fiercely protect the time of these individuals to squarely focus on their various aspects of their defined role.

How does an instructional coach truly define their job?

As with an instructional leadership team, there are 4 core functions of an instructional coach:

Schools invest in what they care about.

Here is a sample job description of an instructional coach adapted from Bryan Independent School District Job Description:

1. Serve as a member of the campus leadership team.

2. Work with content coordinator and campus administration to design and provide professional development focused on improving alignment and delivery of the written, taught, and tested curriculum to increase student success and close performance gaps.

3. Work with teachers and campus administration to analyze student data, diagnose instructional needs and identify research-based instructional strategies to close achievement gaps.

4. Provide job-embedded professional development for teachers through modeling engaging, standards-based teaching as needed.

5. Collaborate with content coordinator, campus administration, and teachers to review and develop aligned curriculum components including assessments.

6. Provide individual and/or group instructional coaching and mentoring to teachers to improve classroom instruction for all learners.

7. Conduct teacher observations and/or walk-throughs and provide feedback that facilitates teacher reflection and growth.

8. Work with content coordinators, campus administration, and team and/or grade level teachers in planning standards-based lessons and assessments aligned to the district curriculum.

9. Manage and distribute instructional resources to teachers and provide training on the use of those resources.

Notice that this job description does not include “other duties as assigned.” The goal is to narrow in on the core work of an instructional coach so the bulk of a coach’s time is spent improving the instructional capacity of the district.

Must-Have Instructional Coaching Literature

By Dr. Joanna Lein

If you’re looking for a few texts to kickstart your instructional leadership practice, we suggest starting with these easy-to-read but information-packed texts. Below we’ve offered a few details to help you decide where to start.

Get Better Faster by Paul Bambrick-Santoyo

Get Better Faster by Paul Bambrick-Santoyo

  • Provides a practical coaching guide, which includes a clearly defined scope and sequence
  • Provide descriptors of specific, narrow instructional practices to use with teachers
  • Written for instructional leaders who coach novice teachers
  • Use like a manual that you carry with you use during classroom observations, to prep coaching debriefs, or to diagnose an issue

Instructional Coaching by Jim Knight

  • Gives a strong overview of instructional coaching for teachers of all experience levels
  • Emphasizes the importance of partnership for long-term coaching success
  • Includes specific communication techniques, the big 4 instructional categories, and research evidence
  • Provides a variety of vignettes about coaching

Art of Coaching by Elena Aguilar

  • Explores a variety of lenses that coaches use when they are working with a teacher
  • Discusses the importance of self-work for coaches
  • Provides helpful vignettes and narratives to explore the nuances of coaching


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