Principal-Coach Agreements for Smoother Sailing

For many of us, the school year is about to get underway. If you’ve had clear expectations for coaching in place in the past, you can smoothly step back into old routines. But if coaching is new for you or your school or there has been confusion about the coach’s role, a principal-coach agreement might make for smoother sailing in the year ahead.
 
A partnership agreement between principal and coach helps to define the working relationship between the coach and the principal and outlines expectations for the coach’s work.  Codifying these expectations removes the fuzziness that sometimes surrounds a coach’s role.

A principal-coach agreement might consider the following:

·       How and when will the principal and coach communicate?

·       How many and which teachers will the coach work with? (preferably all!)

·       What is the scope of the coaching work? (subject areas, topics, etc.)

·       What are the coach’s roles? (modeling, co-planning, data discussions, etc.)

·       How will time be made in the teachers’ day for coaching work?

·       How will confidentiality in the teacher-coach relationship be maintained?

·       How will we measure the effectiveness of the coaching work?

·       What resources are available to the coach?

Principal leadership is a key resource for coaching. Research suggests that teachers participate more in coaching when principals trust the coach to manage their own time, publicly endorse the coach’s expertise, and explicitly affirm teachers’ need for coaching.*  Principal support and clear job responsibilities are instrumental to coaches’ success.**  Partnership between a principal and coach is crucial.
 
To help you think through what your principals-coach agreement might look like, I’ve put together templates and questions that get at core needs, plus some varied examples of completed agreements. If you’d like me to send you these supports for creating a principal-coach agreement, complete this form and you’ll get them in your inbox.
 
Once you and your principal have arrived at agreement about these important ideas, plan for how this information will be shared with teachers. When the principal and coach model a collaborative relationship, the tone is set for similar collaboration as coaches and teachers undertake their shared work.
 
I became a literacy coach in the early years of coaching and neither my principal nor I initially had a clear vision of what coaching could look like. We figured out what my role would be as we walked the road together, and fortunately we saw eye to eye about the big things. We informally asked ourselves questions like the ones above. Today, there’s substantial experience with coaching, but what a coach does runs the gamut, so it’s quite possible that you and your principal may have different ideas about a coach’s role. That makes the principal-coach agreement even more important. Having a shared understanding of the work at the outset of the school year can set a tone for inquiry that makes coaching effective.
 
* Matsumura, L. C., Sartoris, M., Bickel, D. D., & Garnier, H. E. (2009). Leadership for literacy coaching: The principal’s role in launching a new coaching program. Educational Administration Quarterly, 45(5), 655–693.
 
**Matsumura, L. C., Garnier, H. E., & Spybrook, J. (2012). The effect of content-focused coaching on the quality of classroom text discussions. Journal of Teacher Education, 63(3), 214–228.
 
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Hooray!!! My new book, Differentiated Mentoring & Coaching in Education: From Preservice Teacher to Expert Practitioner is a fall release from Teachers College Press!  I’m so excited to share it with you! You can order the book now and use the code: TCP2022 for free shipping. Click  here  and I’ll email you the free Book Group Study Guide that includes questions, prompts, and activities you can use as you share the book with colleagues.  I hope you’ll love this book as much as I loved making it for you!

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This week, you might want to take a look at:
 
Letters from home:  Letting family & friends teach us about students:
 
https://choiceliteracy.com/article/letters-from-home-letting-families-and-friends-teach-us/
 
 
The Bedley Brothers’ podcast episode on collaboration:
 
http://bedleybros.podomatic.com/entry/2015-05-30T01_00_00-07_00
 
 
Retelling rubric for themes and ideas:
 
http://chartchums.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/image-2.jpg
 
 
Make a mantra:
 
https://choiceliteracy.com/article/mantras-matter/
 
 
A podcast episode to share with parents: Back-to-school tips:
 
https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/podcasts/item/back_to_school
 
That’s it for this week. Happy Coaching!

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