I'm back...

An Announcement...

I have yet to officially announce that I have decided to return to the world of Literacy Collaborative. As you may or may not remember, my district suffered from HUGE budget cuts last school year and with those cuts the majority of LC coaches lost their positions. It also caused the model of a coach to change drastically with only 2 primary LC's coaching 4 elementary schools. They would no longer be in a classroom for 2 1/2 hours a day and PD would only be offered (primarily) after school with limited participants due to many limiting factors. With all of this happening you are probably wondering...what about intermediate? Well, it fell to the back burner. Without a coach, the majority of teachers did what they felt comfortable doing. Some tried their best implementing what they knew or what they thought they knew, while others abandoned best practices and did what was easiest for them. By no means am I pointing fingers....no that's not it at all. I want people to understand the importance of having a coach. A coach helps to push you to do your best, be reflective, think about best practices, think about different possibilities, think about your students individually and what they need, help to think of ways to improve student achievement, provide you with the newest research and resources, and the list goes on. So you can only imagine what was happening to 3-5.

It frustrated me that people were saying that 3-5 teachers were "doing" LC without a coach. Well, if they fully understood LC, they would know that it is NOT something that you just DO. It is a model of best practices supported by research. The model has to include a coach and professional development...both of which were now nonexistent. So...no, LC was not happening.

I spent a great deal of time deciding what to do. I had endless conversations with my fellow coaches, colleagues, my mother, boyfriend, principals, superintendents, and friends. I knew that something had to change. Someone had to step up. I knew that many of my fellow coaches didn't want to do it and I fully understood their reasons, as many of them were my cons, as well. I was not happy with the validity of the program. A coach needs to practice their craft. While, I can model for teachers, to me it's not the same. And 4 schools? How would this work? In the end,  I've decided I have to do what I can and hopefully it will help and make a difference.

With all of this being said...I think that it is time to announce that for the 2014-15 school year, I will be the Intermediate Literacy Collaborative Coach (3-5) for my district (4 elementary schools).

Here is our school's webpage...a work in progress:
http://www.vcsd.k12.ny.us/Page/9293

For more information about LC visit:

http://www.literacycollaborative.org/index.php