McHenry Times

The Community Unit School District 300 Board of Education in Algonquin, Illinois, met April 11.

During the meeting, the board heard about an instructional coach program in the district from a team of teachers and administrators, according to a video of the meeting posted to the board’s YouTube page.

The team was introduced by Superintendent Susan Harkin and consists of Jorge Almodovar, Dr. Ami Engel, Adrian Harries, Kari Waller, Beth Goudy, and David Rojas. The departments span diversity, English language arts, math, science, and world languages.

There are 45 instructional coaches throughout the district, and it was noted during the meeting that 65% of teachers have had at least one meeting with a coach this year. Coaches have also hosted 652 targeted professional development sessions and supported 19,703 appointments with staff.

Steve Fiorentino, a board member, said the program seems to be working.

“The numbers were very impressive, top-line numbers,” Fiorentino said. “I would like to meet some of the 45 if that's possible. And I'd like to hear maybe directly from them some stories because I think the stories relate to how are we supporting our educators. Right. And that's a lot of what we do. So, if they're the ones that are doing that and they're on the front line of supporting our educators, I think it would be a good idea to, you know, the board hears at some point directly from some of them anyway. I'd like to see who those mass people are because I hear about it a lot and I meet them in the schools. But, you know, we don't often get to know who they are and clearly, they're a talented group.”

The goal of the program is to improve student engagement with teachers and staff while increasing students’ academic success and attaining and retaining qualified and diverse staff. The coaching structure has five main areas: digital learning, math, literacy, language, and inclusion.

Some of the most common parts of coaching are to help with the creation and implementation of curriculum and lesson plans. Another is to support teachers through coaching cycles and identify goals in the classroom to focus on. From there the coaches assess progress and potential changes. The goal this year for the program has been to make coaching consistent and accessible for all teachers in the district and find new ways to evaluate the impact of their coaching to make changes and improvements for teachers to build on.

The next step is to develop strategies to increase the number of staff accessing coaching support, according to comments made during the meeting. Another priority is to strengthen coaches’ skills to ensure consistent coaching practices and find ways to optimize the impact of the coaches.

Rojas said the board will continue to evaluate and monitor the effectiveness of the program.

The coaching program began to support staff learning and help staff members perfect skills in Tier 1 buildings, according to the video. The district expanded to 1-1 computer programs, and all students have their own devices. The program then expanded to the entire district to best serve teachers and students.