Introduction to Coaching
GRAND RAPIDS PUBLIC SCHOOLS
AUGUST 18-19
Introductions
 Get in groups of 3-4 and respond to following
questions (be prepared to share):
1)
2)
3)
4)
5)
Schools/Role/Secondary or Elementary?
What do you hope to get out of these meetings?
How comfortable are you with your new role?
Any apprehensions?
What are your top 3 goals for the next two days?
Goals
What do we want to
accomplish over the next
two days?
Agenda
 Introductions/Welcome
 Goal Setting
 What is coaching?
 Coaching activities
 Foundations for school-wide implementation
 Problem-solving roadblocks
 Action Planning
District Implementation of RTI and PBS
 Put in description of the district goals here…..
School-Wide Support Systems for Student
Success
Intensive Intervention
Individualized, functional
assessment, highly
specific
Universal Prevention
Core Instruction,
all students,
preventive, proactive
Targeted Intervention
Supplemental, some
students, reduce risk
Social Competence,
Academic Achievement, and Safety
OUTCOMES
Supporting
Decision
Making
Supporting
Staff Behavior
PRACTICES
Supporting
Student Behavior
Visibility
Funding
Political
Support
Leadership Team
Active Coordination
Training
Coaching
Evaluation
Local School Teams/Demonstrations
Major Themes of Implementation
 Effective practices are only as good as systems
that support adults who use them.
 Focus on the redesign of learning environments
to promote teaching & learning.
 Durable implementation requires unwavering &
dedicated commitment to “working smarter.”
Why do we need coaches?
Coaching Rationale: If school leadership teams are
to be successful, structures and routines must be in
place to assist, prompt, encourage, and monitor their
progress as they develop, implement, and evaluate
their school-wide system.
Coaching Capacity
Definition of coaching capacity:
Coaching, or facilitation, capacity refers to the
system’s ability to organize personnel and
resources for supporting local school training
and implementation efforts.
. . . The emphasis is on coaching roles,
responsibilities and activities. Efficiencies are
achieved by integrating the coaching functions
into job descriptions of existing school
personnel . . .
Coaches are
Leaders in their districts
Effective communicators
Individuals with expertise in data analysis
Content experts in behavior and reading support
Relationship builders
Keepers of the vision
Capable of staying focused on….
Coaches
 Facilitate the problem solving process for schools
 Share content knowledge with the goal of
developing local expertise
 Teach, Encourage, Support, Guide, Cajole, Beg,
Plead, Weep, all in the interest of moving schools
toward the goal of all children reading and the
development of good social skills
Improving Decision Making
From
Solution
Problem
To
Problem
Problem
Solving
Solution
Why is Coaching Important?
 Team start-up support
 Team sustainability/accountability



Technical assistance/problem solving
Positive reinforcement
Prompts (“positive nags”)
 Public relations/communications
 Support network across schools
 Link between trainers & teams
 Local facilitation
Who should be a coach?
 Internal vs External
Internal coaches are employed in the school where they provide
support
 External coaches are employed outside the schools where they
provide support (e.g. by district, region, state).

Internal vs. External Coaching
Internal Coach
External Coach
Advantages
Knowledge of school
Staff relationships
Regular access
Independent
Outside perspective
Multiple schools experience
Disadvantages
Conflicting roles
Narrow range of
experiences
Limited knowledge of school
Limited relationships
Less frequent access
Coaching vs. Training
 Coaching involves active collaboration and
participation
Small group
 Build from local competence
 Sustainable
 Hands on

Coaching Activities
There are no quick
fixes… Thinking is
Required”
- David Tilly (2007)
Commitment of Coaches
 Team Support
 First Year (1-2 teams) (participate in training and planning)
 Second Year (Maintain initial teams, start 3-5 teams)
 Future Years (10-15 teams total)
 FTE commitment
 15-25%
 Roles/Background
 Behavior Specialists, Special Education Teachers
 Consultants, Administrators
 School Psychologists, Counselors, Social Workers
What Coaches Do
 Dissemination of outcomes and effects
 Within school
 Across district
 With state leadership
 SWIS Facilitation
 Implement and support use of data-based decision making.
What Coaches Do




Work with team during initial training
Meet with new teams monthly on-site
Telephone/email contact as needed
“Positive” nag




Self-assessment (EBS Survey, Team Checklist)
Action planning
Activity implementation
On-going evaluation
School self-evaluation efforts
 State-wide Initiative evaluation efforts (SET)

 Guide State-wide initiative
 Feedback to Leadership Team
Prior to Training…
1. Verify facilitator role with Coordinator
2. Review facilitator role with Principal
3. Review status of team: principal, grade level
representatives, special educator, counselor,
parent, classified staff members (Committee
Review)
4. Ask team to bring discipline data, behavior
incident reports, office discipline referral forms,
school discipline policy, procedures for teaching
school-wide behavior expectations, procedures
for encouraging SW expectations, DIBELS, CSI
Maps etc.
5. Review tools and DATA: Team Implementation
Checklist, EBS Self-Assessment Survey, PET
During Team Training
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Remind team of facilitator role
Let team lead process
Keep team on task & reinforce progress
Remind team of big ideas from presentations
Prompt outcomes: Team Implementation
Checklist, Team Action Plan, PET
After Training…
1.
2.
Acknowledge/reinforce principal & team for
progress at training
Prompt team to




3.
Contact team leader 2x in first month & ask


4.
5.
Meet & review PBS purpose & action plan with staff
Collect school data
Meet w/in 1 month
Complete Assignment
What is planned
if assistance needed
Attend team meeting 1x month
Monitor & assist in development & completion of
action plan
Assist Teams in Using Data for Decision-making
 Help teams understand outcome data
(DIBELS/CBM, ODR)
 Help teams understand system data (Team
Checklist, PET-R)
Most importantly, help team make
decisions based on the data
Guiding Principles for Effective Coaching
 Build local capacity
• Become irrelevant…but remain available
 Maximize current competence
• Never change things that are working
• Always make the smallest change that will have the biggest
impact
 Focus on valued outcomes
• Tie all efforts to the benefits for children
Guiding Principles for Effective Coaching
 Emphasize Accountability
• Measure and report; measure and report; measure and report.
 Build credibility through:
• (a) consistency, (b) competence with behavioral principles/practices,
(c) relationships, (d) time investment.
 Precorrect for success
 Celebrate
Self-Assessment
 Complete the coaching self-assessment
independently
 Determine your three greatest strengths and areas
for improvement
 Be prepared to share to a group
Self-Assessment
 Action Plan
 What can you do to increase coaching skills?
 What can the district do to facilitate the development of these
skills?
Foundations of School-wide
Interventions
Leadership Team
 Develop a school-based leadership team that will
“guide” implementation
 This team should include:





Administrator
General Education Teachers
Special Education Teachers
Coach
Other stakeholders
Committee Audit
 Must work smarter, not harder
 Whenever something new is added, something must
eliminated…
 Although a team-based process is essential, creating
a new team may be difficult
 Begin to complete the committee audit form for one
of your schools
Initiative,
Committee
Purpose
Outcome
Target
Group
Staff
Involved
SIP/SID/
etc
Attendance
Committee
Increase
% of
attendance students
attending
All
students
Eric, Ellen,
Marlee
Character
Education
Improve
character
All
students
Marlee, J.S., ??
Ellen
Safety
Committee
Improve
safety
All
students
Has not met
School Spirit
Committee
School
spirit
All
students
Has not met
Discipline
Committee
Improve
behavior
All
students
Ellen, Eric,
Marlee, Otis
Goal #3
DARE
Committee
Decrease
drug use
All
students
Don
??
SWPBS Work
Group
Implement
3-tier
model
Student
behavior?
Improve
discipline
Office
All
referrals,
students
Attendance,
Grades
Goal #2
??
Eric, Ellen,
Goal #2
Marlee, Otis, Goal #3
Emma
Working Smarter
Initiative,
Project,
Committee
Attendance
Committee
Character
Education
Safety
Committee
School Spirit
Committee
Discipline
Committee
DARE
Committee
EBS Work
Group
Purpose
Outcome
Target
Group
Staff
Involved
SIP/SID/
etc
1. Eliminate all initiatives that do NOT have a defined
purpose and outcome measure.
2. Combine initiatives that have the same outcome
measure and same target group
3. Combine initiatives that have 75% of the same staff
4. Eliminate initiatives that are not tied to School
Improvement Goals.
At your schools…
1) Complete the committee audit
2) Determine if your leadership team can be
integrated into another committee
3) Create a leadership team
Roadblocks to Implementation
Roadblocks to Implementation
 Every implementation
has people who


Have never tried what is
being proposed
Can tell you 100 reasons
why it won’t work
 Indeed, some of them
seem to project the
following concepts into
your implementation…
Team Implementation Challenges
 Multiple competing initiatives
 Low implementation priority
 Low staff commitment/agreement
 Lack of administrative leadership
 Inefficient operation & decision making
 Lack of behavioral capacity (knowledge &
fluency)
 Non-data based decision making
 Poor implementation accuracy & durability
 ……
Types of Roadblocks
Systems
1) Administrative Support
2) Resource Allocation
3) Data Use
4) Ineffective/inefficient
team structure
Practices
1) Fidelity of
Implementation
2) Philosophical
Differences
3) Priorities
5)
4)
6)
5)
Why don’t implementers (or students) do what we
want?
Skills Deficit
 “Can’t do”
 Lacking the skills,
knowledge, experience
to perform the desired
behavior
Performance Deficit
 “Won’t do”
 Has the skills,
knowledge, experience
but lacks the motivation
to perform the desired
behavior
Preventing Roadblocks
 Administrator support and active involvement
 Team-based process
 Report to entire staff on a regular basis
 Establish buy-in with a minimum of 80% of staff
Understand implementer perspectives
 Reinforced for referring to special education
 Tend to attribute student problems to internal
disposition and home causes which equals no
power
Skills to establish trust and rapport
 Listen attentively
 Paraphrase for shared understanding
 Ask empowering questions
 Validate and appreciate
Empowering Questions

Ask empowering questions that are open-ended,
non-judgmental questions.

Open-ended questions are an important
opportunity for critical feedback. They can guide
personal inquiry and reflection for professional
growth and improvement.

Validate and appreciate to focus on the positive
and make statements in the positive.

Statements are specific and reflect what is valued by the
other person.
Be prepared to take an active part
 Make sure that team members know they
are working with you, not for you.

John Wooden
 Coaches should be able to provide hands on
demonstrations and model what is required.



Training
Tools
Support
Roadblocks
 Anticipate roadblocks
 Pre-correct for roadblocks
 Typically, it is best to address systems roadblocks
first
Summary
 Coaching is a rewarding role
 Make everyone else around you more effective
 Help the team make the main ideas fit their students,
culture, setting, families
 Focus on long-term impact.