Director of Curriculum for District 205 Tiffany Springer says that by 2025 she hopes to have ten instructional coaches in Galesburg schools.These coaches would be positions trained to mentor, give feedback and check for “blind spots” in teachers’ methods.
Instructional coaching is one of the 26 elements that funding is based on in the Evidence-Based Funding model that Illinois schools are now funded under.
In a presentation to the 205 Board Monday night Springer says research indicates that professional development in the form of a one day speaker often doesn’t have a lasting impact on student achievement.
But long-term collaborative coaching can reveal to teachers ways to improve that might not have occurred to them.
“There’s no way a teacher can catch all those things that are going on in your room, so with this second set of eyes we can have this dialogue of what we can do to make it even better,” Springer says. “It’s not about people being bad at teaching, it’s about making good to go to great. What can we do to make greater impacts on student achievement?”
Springer says she would like to see four coaches in K-6, three for 7-9th grade and another three for 10th-12th grade and would prefer that most of them come from teachers already in the district.
She says with staff shifts this would be cost-neutral and they’re aiming to begin the implementation by the 2019-2020 school year.
