Layered Leadership for Literacy

How the schools in Waterville, Maine, align coaching support for teachers to raise the level of achievement.

Like many school districts, Waterville, Maine, is a district working with limited human and material resources. We have lived through several changes of administration and constant flipping of initiatives at both the national and state levels.

During the past five years alone, our state has changed from the Maine Educational Assessments to New England Common Assessment Program to Smarter Balanced with the latter abandoned by the state after only a year amid rumors the assessment was riddled with poorly worded questions, online glitches and doubts that the test accurately measured student learning.

Teachers in Waterville, a district with about 1,700 students, have grown apprehensive about any new initiatives. However, through all the change, our district has stayed the course in terms of their commitment to a layered approach to literacy leadership. Our guiding question for our work has been and continues to be this: “If the Common Core standards and state assessment system all went away, would we be implementing best instructional practice?” Waterville is a district that has set high standards and is committed to student achievement for all.

Waterville is far from the stereotypical, idyllic postcard picture many people have of Maine. We face the same challenges of poverty, student mobility and high teacher turnover rates that other districts experience. The free and reduced-price lunch population is over 60 percent, with a yearly transient rate of 33 percent. Students come and go and come back. We have a new homeless shelter that sleeps about 60 people and is renovating the second level for more beds to increase its capacity. Many new students in Waterville register the shelter as their primary residence.

In the same town, two private colleges employ several hundred professors. The children of these well-educated professionals are thrown into the mix of a struggling community that once housed several prosperous paper mills.

Differentiated Coaching

Because we have stayed the course, I have been given the gift of time to work through the layered literacy model that we implemented. Think of these layers as opportunities for learning and opportunities for teachers to refine their craft. The layers of support are aligned to school/district initiatives with the ultimate goal of increasing overall student achievement. The layers of coaching, and the purposeful alignment of these layers to school district initiatives, make coaches the secret weapon for building systemic capacity.

The layers of support provided by a coach when planned with purpose and intention can support, sustain and reinforce learning and change within schools. Not all teachers will access all layers of support every year. A new teacher may access all the layers (resources from the literacy room, in-class support, study groups, required professional development, support with curriculum and assessment and participation in whole-school experiences) while a veteran teacher may access only a few layers, depending on the year (study groups, required professional development and assessment).

The model is designed to differentiate for the needs of teachers while having the capacity to support all teachers within a school. When the layers of support work together within a school community, they deepen and sustain learning for students and teachers alike.

Making Meaning

In his book Why Leaders Can’t Lead, Warren Bennis states, “To make dreams apparent to others and to align people with them requires not just mere explanations or clarification but the creation of meaning.” It is through shared experiences that meaning is made and a shared understanding and interpretation is developed. How often in education do we simply try to convince others of our ideas by telling them what they should be doing? How often is curriculum handed to teachers with expectations of implementation with little or no explanation? Then we wonder why there is no ownership, little understanding and no buy-in with the staff. When we do not have a common understanding, we tend to make our own meaning. It is this shared understanding of practices, curriculum and assessment that will move our work forward. This requires creating ongoing opportunities for shared experiences and conversations among staff. As a literacy leader, I work to create opportunities that bring people together to make meaning.

Weekly grade-level meetings are one way we make meaning together of curriculum and assessment. Teachers unpack curriculum and translate what it looks like instructionally within the classroom. Student work is brought into the meetings. Teachers ask themselves, “does the work reflect what we want students to know and be able to communicate?” This approach takes time and can be slow going but leads to sustainable change and shared ownership. It also keeps all staff on the same page with similar expectations, especially as teaching staff come and go from the school district.

Another key component to this model is that administrators are often at the table with teachers. The assistant superintendent, curriculum coordinator, principals, math and literacy specialists/coaches also participate in the coaching layers, whether it is supporting teachers in classrooms, popping into study groups or participating in curriculum and assessment conversations at grade-level meetings. Teachers and administrators work to make meaning together.

Rowing Together

The work of literacy leaders should be interconnected and aligned to the goals of the rest of the school. Although literacy coaches often talk about being in a “no man’s land,” it is essential that literacy leaders are well-connected within the school community and to administration. Peter Lencioni writes in the book, The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, “If you could get all the people in an organization rowing in the same direction, you could dominate any industry, in any market, against any competition, at any time.” This doesn’t mean that every staff member is going to buy into the vision or direction set forth by the school district. But it does mean that the leadership team needs to be clear and explicit on goals set for the school and that resources are aligned and working together to meet these goals. Coaches are embedded school leaders who can support the concept of schools “rowing” in the same direction as they build system capacity.

As a literacy leader and coach within the Waterville district, I work at the school level to provide professional development to all teachers, creating a common understanding of best literacy practices. I facilitate teacher study groups so that teachers’ individual professional needs are met. In addition, I work with teachers and students in classrooms, supporting teachers as they implement new teaching strategies. I also work as a team with other leaders and coaches.

Both literacy and math leaders use this approach to support teachers with instructional practice and to ensure consistent implementation of curriculum and assessments within and across grade levels. We design professional development opportunities to meet the standards put forth by the U.S. Department of Education, Common Core Standards and Learning Forward and incorporate the latest research on providing high-quality professional development.

Michael Fullan, writing in Educational Leadership in October 2011, says, “School improvement will fail if the work of coaches remains at the one-to-one level. Coaches are system leaders. They need to develop as change agents at both the instructional level and the level of organizational and system change.” It is essential that our work as literacy leaders extends beyond the walls of classrooms to improve teaching and learning. A layered approach to supporting teachers might be the key to rowing in the same direction — toward increased student achievement.