Giving Compass' Take:

• The superintendent of Marion County School District discusses how they are finding creative ways to bring instructional coaching methods into their teacher development programs.

• This school district received help from the Department of Education Teacher and School Leader Incentive Program Grant. How can donors expand support for professional development initiatives and grants such as this one?

• Here are some new teacher recruiting strategies. 

I’m the superintendent of Marion County School District, a rural district with low income and high unemployment compared to neighboring communities. We are surrounded by communities with wealthier tax bases and the ability to pay teachers higher salaries than we are. More generally, our state tends to struggle at producing college graduates with teaching degrees. Taken all together, it creates a situation in which it’s very difficult to recruit highly-qualified teachers into the district.

But when you ask people what’s important to them about their job, they don’t always say “money.” Often times they care a lot more about the climate and culture of their workplace and, while we may not be able to pay teachers more, we can create an environment they want to be in, where they know we’re building capacity, and where they see opportunities for growth.

Here are a few creative ways we’ve been working to bring our instructional coaching into the future, with help from a Department of Education Teacher and School Leader Incentive Program Grant, by changing the way we look at developing our teaching staff, from recruitment through professional development, to ensure our district is an environment where teachers can grow.

  • Increased Structure for PLCs: In the past, our professional learning community meetings were somewhat unstructured. They would often turn into staff meetings or department or grade-level meetings.
  • More Focus on Reflection: Part of that more reflective approach to coaching is pushing the coaches to ask questions that encourage self-examination and reflection, but incorporating video into our coaching is a big part as well.
  • Video Observations: When teachers record themselves in class, they upload their files into our video observation platform from Insight ADVANCE, where they can review it later themselves,

Read the full article about teachers as their own coaches by Dr. Kandace Betheaat at Getting Smart.