The Principal's Handbook

Instructional Coaching That Works

The Principal’s Handbook | Guest: Chrissy Beltran

Cleaned for readability from the supplied transcript. Some speaker turns occur within the same paragraph and are marked jointly.

Barb: Welcome everyone to "The Principal's Handbook.", Today we have a guest with us, Chrissy Beltran. So welcome, Chrissy, to the podcast. Thank you so much for having me today. I'm super excited- yeah, of course. So if you just want to start by, telling us about yourself, your background and your career in education.

Chrissy: My name is Chrissy Beltran, and you may know me as Buzzing with Miss B., I have been in education since the early 2000s. I started out as an elementary teacher, and then I became an instructional coach. And so since then I have, branched out into consulting, supporting instructional coaches and school leaders in designing their coaching programs at their school to really improve instruction and management, and, focusing on the kinds of strategies that are helpful for coaches to work with teachers.

Chrissy: I also have a podcast, "Instructional Coaching with Miss B,", where I get to chat with great coaches and administrators and people doing the research, from all over.

Barb: That's awesome. I'm so glad you're here. I love this topic of instructional coaching bebecause I think it's such an important one.

Barb: And in my background I've been in a couple of different elementary schools now as a principal. My first elementary, it was my last couple years, we hired a coach, that went between the two elementary schools. So she was a teacher already in the district who then, became, a literacy coach, actually - for the elementary and middle school and high school.

Barb: So she was all over the place. And then in my next school we didn't have a coach, and then my current building that I'm in, every elementary school has a coach. And so as somebody who's a principal who loves instructional leadership, it has been an interesting year as I navigate working with a coach. And she's an amazing coach, but it's just different bebecause I'm used to, having to be the instructional leader on my own.

Barb: And we think very much alike, which I feel very, privileged that it is that way, 'because I could see that it would be rough if you have different instructional philosophies and things like that. But, yeah, so, it's really interesting to utilize a coach when I love instructional leadership and I'm so used to being an instructional leader.

Barb / Chrissy: So what tips do you have for principals about working with a coach and how to utilize that coach and really, empower them and build their expertise while also being the instructional leader of the building? Yeah. I think the first thing is what you mentioned, is that you have to partner with your coach, right?

Chrissy: And you have to really have conversations about what practice looks like at your school and what values you have around that. And then you have to nail down what the coach's role is. And that is something that, if you haven't worked with a coach before, it can feel kind of daunting 'because you're like, "Well, what do I have them do exactly?

Chrissy: Where are the boundaries?" Around that role. Bebecause what happens is bebecause coaches don't have a classroom of their own, it's not uncommon that they serve as like substitutes and they cover all the duties and, all those kinds of things. If that's where your coach ends up - spending most of their time, then they're not going to be impacting instruction. So you want to get really clear on what a coach is.

Chrissy: It's somebody who partners with teachers individually, with groups, and across your faculty to create instructional change and management change in the classroom. And so if you can nail down what that looks like at your school, what kinds of strategies they use, how they interact with teachers. Are they facilitating, PLC meetings?

Chrissy: Are they running them? Are they, popping in and out? What does this look like and why? Why do we do things the way that we do? And then if you can communicate that with your teachers, then you can start to create a culture around coaching, and learning as an ongoing practice that we do at schools.

Chrissy: We have to constantly learn new things and figure things out and try stuff and see how it works., If we can build that culture with our teachers, then we are actually going to be able to make positive changes. But if there are question marks, if every time they look at that coach, they're like, "I don't know.

Chrissy / Barb: Are they just like going to tattle on me? Are they going to tell the principal all the mistakes I made? Are they holding me accountable? Are they evaluating me?" All of those question marks result, in a lack of clarity that makes it really hard for the coach to do their job. Yeah. Yeah, I think that's a great point.

Barb: I found this year so far some of the things that I've done versus what she's done is we had some ideas for first grade with different groupings. So I laid the groundwork to what this is going to look like. Now the coach takes the lead

Barb: So saying, "Hey, this is what it could look like. This is what we're going to try," and then giving her, the autonomy to help, build what that actually looks like. So same with evaluations. I've always felt like - if I give feedback, I can say, "Hey, we have a coach who could help with that."

Barb: So I think that's something that, you know, like you said, this culture of coaching as the principal really laying that foundation for having someone there that people can go to. But I think a lot of times people don't necessarily think about it right away, as a resource that they can go to, especially if it's newer.

Barb / Chrissy: Like in our building, this is her second year, so it's pretty new to have an instructional coach right there in the building for teachers. Yeah., That's a really good point bebecause if it's not been somebody that's like a, a role that they've had in an ongoing way, it's really daunting to have people come into your classrooms, especially when you're unsure about what you're there to do.

Chrissy: So I like the way you're talking about really distinguishing between, and this is so important, evaluative and kind of like setting expectation and accountability, which is all principal, right?, That's the way that the principal serves as the instructional leader saying, "This is the direction we're headed.

Chrissy: I've put this information together with input that all of those things are important. But you have to make the final decision, right? And this is the direction we're moving, and the coach is there to help you in doing those things and to help you improve in instruction.", If the, the coach has to serve as the accountability source, it doesn't work very well bebecause people don't really always trust that person in their classroom if they're also the one who's going to hold them accountable.

Chrissy / Barb: I mean, there are natural accountability measures we take, but, it's very different than a principal who is your evaluator Yeah. Yeah, I think that's a great point. Now, I said how lucky I am that we have similar, like, instructional philosophies, things like that. So what do you do?, What would a principal do if they think differently than their coach, or maybe they just find they have personalities that kind of clash?

Barb / Chrissy: Do you have any tips or advice for that? That's a good question. It happens, right? It happens, and just like as a principal, you've probably worked with a lot of people that you clash with by the time you get to that position. You've had a lot, of experience in education, and education is made up of all types, right?

Chrissy: I think finding some common ground is important, just like whenever you build relationships with anybody, which is part of the instructional coaching toolbox, that I share about for coaches. We have to be really deliberate about building relationships by bridge-building.

Chrissy: So maybe you don't agree on a lot of things, but there have to be some things that can bind you. And so if you can find some common ground with the coach, that's one way to start establishing, a relationship that can help you work as a partnership. I also think it's important to learn together bebecause, you may come in, with the practices that you believe in and you've seen them work, and they also have had those experiences where they've seen things work and they haven't seen other things work.

Chrissy: But if you can learn something together as a leadership team and try to implement it, then that's like it wasn't any one person going, "Oh, this is, this is just my prerogative. This is just what I think." It's like we really did go out of our way to integrate this new learning, to understand it, and then to support our teachers in it.

Chrissy: So that can be one way to go about it, is to get everybody on board by learning together., The principal is the principal. The buck does stop with them, but I think it's also important to value that there can be different ways of doing the same thing, and they... Just bebecause they're different, it doesn't mean that one is right and one is wrong, as long as student outcomes are positive.

Chrissy: And I'm not just talking about test scores. That's one piece of what we want our kids to do, right? But we want our kids to be engaged, and verbally able to explain, and to integrate new learning and to collaborate with peers. We want them to do all these great things. If we can achieve those outcomes through different strategies, then maybe there's an opportunity for the coach to bring something to the table and say, "Actually, I think this might be really helpful."

Chrissy / Barb: Or for the principal to say, "Well, have we tried this? Let's focus on this." Like, it can be a very collaborative effort Yeah, and I loved what you said about professional learning together bebecause, I'm in a cohort of principals and we're really focusing on our tier one instruction, and it's like an initiative through the state.

Barb: But that's some of the things I'm sitting there thinking, "I wish my coach was right here with me getting the same PD." Now I go back and I, fill her in, and even I get my own coaching and my coach shares a video with me, I share it with her, but it is, I think that all the time., I wish we were sitting in the same PD together.

Barb: The big picture PD too, bebecause I'm like, even though I'm the principal, she's my person that I'm making these changes with when it comes to instruction. So I think that's such a good point to be on the same page, is to be listening to, those same things. And I've even thought about, book studies and things like that for her and I to do when we're thinking about how do we keep growing and move the building forward.

Chrissy: Yeah. That's perfect. I Talk about book studies in the coaching strategy toolbox for coaches to use with their teachers, but many of those book studies I use with teachers we first did as a leadership team, where, we brought our books.

Chrissy: We met weekly, but once a month we would follow up on the book study, and this is the next section we were to read and we would discuss. And it was really helpful to kind of get some of that conversation happening before we had to lead it with teachers, bebecause we already had done some work, understanding - through the lens of our school.

Chrissy / Barb: And, so then whenever we shared it with teachers, we already had identified, these may be some challenges, these are some areas we're already doing well in, and we could kind of help bridge that to our team. What, tips do you have for principals who aren't lucky enough to have an instructional coach, you know, with some of the resources that you have on coaching?

Chrissy: That is a challenge. Some principals have no coach, some principals have part-time coaches., They may have district personnel who come in and out, so they pop in, and probably they're there for very high-need situations usually., So whenever you've got one of those situations where you are the instructional leader and you have nobody, like no coach-, there are a couple things you can do. One is you really want to build your capacity in your teachers, and so having teachers serve as teacher leaders, while it does add to their plate, it is essential bebecause it's the only way to take... Like you're talking about, you went to this great PD, right?

Chrissy: And how do you turn that around to people? Knowing all the good stuff that's out there, how does it get to the people it needs to get to who make it happen in the classroom? Bebecause you can have amazing knowledge, and it doesn't make it to the kids, right? There's- a disconnect. So how can we take our teacher leaders, and kind of give them those opportunities to build their own capacity to go to the learning and to turn that around with their peers?

Chrissy: Sometimes you can do clever scheduling things,. People find ways of having PLC teams collaborate together, by providing coverage in different ways or by creating rotating schedules, and really making sure that teacher leader, is set up, that you have met with them in advance, and you set them up in terms of being successful with working with their team, getting really purposeful planning done, breaking down your standards, all those things that we know need to happen.

Chrissy: Somebody has to lead those conversations, and you can't be in every room to lead them, right?. Another really great thing to do that's not complicated is to get people to visit each other and see great learning happen.

Chrissy: So there are people on your campus right now that you're like, "Oh my gosh, this room is amazing, and if every room looked like this room, we would just, we'd be in business, baby." So we want to make sure that we get other teachers to see those great practices that are happening in the classroom by setting up those colleague visits and encouraging teachers, like, "Let's figure out an area that you want to grow in.

Chrissy / Barb: Let's find somebody who's really good at it and get you to visit," and then you can do that across your grades. It's really about building strong teams when you don't have a coach. And it, I mean, you're always going to kind of feel the lack, it's challenging. But if you can set up your teams to be really strong and have strong communication with your leadership team and invite those teachers to be part of that team, that's one way to grow instruction without a coach, actually the building I came into, one thing I love, they call it an MDT, multidisciplinary team, but the speech pathologist, counselor, school psych, instructional coach, another MTSS coach for the district, and myself, we meet weekly, and we're like the leadership team of the building.

Barb / Chrissy: And it's kind of nice to have a leadership team. We also have our building leadership team that has grade level representation, but we kind of decide, take what's happening from our district leadership team to that BLT. And it's nice to have people too that can collaborate with you, like big picture thinking, and see things that, can really help move the building forward, now I know that you have a new book out, right? It's called expand Your Coaching Toolbox. Tell us a little bit more about that. is structured into three different sections. It's created specifically for instructional coaches and for school leaders bebecause it gives you specific directions and examples on how to run PLC meetings around looking at assessments, around creating your own assessments, looking at data, facilitating a book study or a video study, getting colleagues to visit each other.

Chrissy: All those tools that coaches use and that principals and administrators use as well., So it's structured into three different sections. The first is building relationships, the second is strategies to build knowledge and alignment, which you many of times do those in teams, and then the strategies for building classroom skill.

Chrissy: And so a coach can say, "Okay, this is a situation that I'm having," they can choose a strategy that is appropriate for that teacher and situation, learn how to use it, and then there's also modifications and ways to continue the coaching conversation. Bebecause too often we do some work with a teacher, we say, "Okay, let me know how it goes," and then we just move on bebecause we're swamped, right?

Chrissy / Barb: . But when we do that, we put a nail in the coffin and we're done with that event, right? And the teacher's like, "Oh, it's over, so I'm done." So instead, we have to like, be really deliberate about how we continue those conversations to support ongoing learning and build those relationships that really support change in the classroom over time.

Barb: Yeah. I love that bebecause I think that's one of the biggest challenges as a principal is that follow-up. Yeah. Right?. I live by my Google calendar, and even when I have new teachers, I put in my calendar like, "Follow up, check in on the new teachers." Or, like you said, having a system for if you're doing these initiatives, how are you following up?

Chrissy: Bebecause, you have to be that accountability piece. I know I need that accountability piece, our teachers just have so much going on. If they're really going to make change, they need that piece. Absolutely, and that's part of this, in section two about building knowledge and alignment, I spend some time talking about that, that knowing-doing gap where we go to the PD, we learn all the things, we go back to the classroom, nothing changes, right?

Chrissy: And it's bebecause they need the follow-up in terms of support and accountability. They need to know it is going to need to be done, and this is how you're going to show that it was done. You're going to bring work samples to your next PLC meeting. You know, we're going to look at data and discuss if these strategies actually made a change.

Chrissy: And then also, there's going to be support for you. Somebody's going to come by and see how you're doing. You're going to talk to your PLC meeting and say, "I could not make that work. How did you make it work? Can I come see your teaching?" You're going to have those opportunities to get better at it through support, and also to reinforce that it needs to be done through the accountability.

Chrissy: So it, that's really... Sometimes We kind of fall, we let go of what we're doing in between the PD- and the classroom., And it's bebecause we think, "Well, we told them," right? But that's just as whenever the teachers tell us, "Well, I taught it," right? It's the same situation.

Chrissy: So we have to follow up just like we would expect the teacher to say, "Well, did you look and see if they did it on the... Did you check? Like, did you look at their assignment? Did you follow up with them? Did you ask?" We have to do the same things with our teachers bebecause that's just... It's not, that they're children, it's that's how learning happens.

Chrissy / Barb: Like I'm saying, when your brain is full, there, it's, it's not going to be relevant to you until, it's required to be relevant, knowing that it's going to be an ongoing goal that you're going to keep working on. Yeah. I love that bebecause I think, like you said, your brain is full, and we just had this conversation that I think one of the things that happens so often too is we get scattered on what our priorities are.

Barb: We were just having this conversation about tier one instruction and making sure our interventions and our enrichment, it's all aligned to tier one. And we have really good curriculum, but instead what we do is we go find things on Teachers Pay Teachers or Instagram, and I said, I think it's just bebecause it's so easy, right?

Barb: I love scrolling on my phone and looking at clothes., I'll get sucked in, for hours looking at outfits, and I know that teachers do with teaching strategies. So then you find these things and you want to implement it, and then it becomes implementation overload. The principal had an idea of the thing that you're working on for your school, and then teachers are on Instagram and TikTok, and then they get ideas.

Barb: And some of them are little things, organizational things that they can implement. But I think, we just talked about this as a staff, that so often it's like, ooh, we should try this 'because it looks like it works so well and we want these strategies to help kids, but we just end up with way too much.

Barb: Versus like really streamlining the process of what are those big things that we're trying to change and improve and, initiatives we're trying to keep working on. So I just love that idea of having that instructional coach or even the principal if you don't have one, and having those tools to really, keep everybody on track with what you're focused on.

Barb / Chrissy: What is that focus for your building? Yeah. I think that's so important. And something you said about having the clear focus It, I've seen that, at all levels that we get, distracted by the shiny objects, right? And also it's difficult, like the district says, "Well, now this is important," right?

Chrissy: And you're like, "Oh, that's not what we were doing." And it's just so many things to juggle., When I was working at, as a literacy coach at a school that was... I mean, they really had to turn it around, right? It was considered a turnaround school. And they, the principal was just fantastic, but I think she was like, "Well, the teachers don't have any resources, so let's get them training.

Chrissy: Let's get them the PD they need." And so they were focusing on writing, and they had just several, within a month, there were like three different things that were not, it's not that they were all opposite of each other, but they were not aligned with each other. And the teachers at the end of the third thing was like, " Look," they were like, ", this is great.

Chrissy: This was a good webinar, but what are we doing?". "I don't know what I'm supposed to be doing now, 'because now I feel like, oh, well that was good, and that was good, and that was... Can we, have some alignment here?" They were asking for alignment. How often do teachers ask for alignment?.

Chrissy: They were overwhelmed. And so from that we're like, "Okay, we need to build whatever our core program is going to look like. What is the main piece going to be? How are we going to develop it? And then what are we going to supplement with?" They still had the freedom to, come up with different ideas, but they wanted to know where to start when they were planning.

Chrissy: They needed one place to start with., And that was helpful. Once we created that together, it takes time, right? Change takes time. But it did make them feel like, "Okay, at least I know now where I'm supposed to go and what is expected." 'Cause before it was like, "

Barb / Chrissy: What Am I picking? Do I pick which one-". "Or are we picking together? What's happening here?" No, I think that's a great point. Well, Chrissy, it's been a great conversation, and again, I love this topic about instructional coaching, but is there anything you want to add before we go?

Chrissy: You can find me at buzzingwithmissb.com, and my book is available at buzzingwithmissb.com/toolbox. It's "Expand Your Coaching Toolbox," out from ASCD Inc. And, it's available for pre-order now.

Chrissy: I'm looking at the date in the corner of my computer. For pre-order now, but it'll be out officially November 9th., So yeah, I just want to get this book into the hands of administrators and school leaders and coaches who are like, " I need something tangible to guide some of the work that I'm doing, 'because I feel like I'm throwing, you know, spaghetti at a wall."

Chrissy: And especially with that coaching role, if it's not clearly defined, it can be very overwhelming to try to figure out where to spend your time, and your day can be gone before you know it, and all you did was make copies and watch somebody's class while they went to the bathroom..

Chrissy / Barb: So if we can get that nailed down, that's a really good place to start. All right. Well, I appreciate you being on today, and I'm going to link everything for listeners as well.