Marta: [speaking Spanish].

Sarah: My personal philosophy as an educator is, we never stop learning and growing ourselves. Coaches help with that, they also model that. I think it’s significant for teachers to have that support and coaches often work like honey bees to share some of the best ideas throughout the building, and that’s really impactful for the teachers, and ultimately for the students.

Amigos is a two-way immersion school. All of the instruction we do here at Amigos is both in Spanish and English. I feel enormously fortunate as a principal to have instructional coaches in my building. I know that in many districts they are often, you know, cut when it comes to budget time. And I have fought long and hard to maintain our coaches, because they can really move our teachers forward in their development as educators. They offer on-site professional development courses. They are able to go in and shoulder to shoulder teach and coach in the moment, to push teachers to try new curriculum, new teaching moves. We would not be able to go as far or as deep without them.

Sarah C.: We work grade levels J, K, all the way up to grade eight, and we’re really here to support teachers in their practice to make the best learning environment that we can for students in the classrooms. We try to customize the coaching role for the needs of the particular teacher, and the cohort of students. So that can look very different.

Teacher: In looking at the chapter, it just dives in.

Sarah C.: I meet every Tuesday with both fifth grade teachers and the special educator that is supporting the fifth grade team this year. We meet to discuss the curriculum that they’re currently teaching, things that are coming up, dynamics of classroom, and all of the different parts of a lesson.
We’re going to have to have some type of a hybrid approach, which is going to require that we continuously monitor students and do formative assessments to figure out where they’re at.

Marta: We have some students that they already know a lot.
She’s essential, because she knows really well the curriculum, the standards, the pacing guide. So she help us a lot to organize everything we need to teach.

Sarah C.: We also need to continue to work with which students are struggling with just a basic understanding of fractions, and eventually we’ll do the same thing with decimals.

Marta: So we plan the approach that we want to have and then she give us ideas and of course, she’s also coming into the classroom. That’s a useful part, so she knows the kids and what we are doing.

Sarah C.: What was the pattern?

Student: It was like–

Sarah C.: There’s a part of my job that has to do with dealing directly with students, working one on one, one on two with small groups, partners or pairs of students, to provide direct intervention and support.

Marta: That’s a special thing. It’s not just a coach that we meet and she tell you what to do or whatever. She comes with us, so that’s the nice part of it.

Sarah: They are really go-to people for the teachers. The teachers know they can go to them with questions, ideas. It’s always better to have more than one point of view or perspective, or pair of eyes on anything. So I think we just do better work because of them.

Sarah C.: Because you understand why it works.

Schools That Work

Amigos School