How to Keep Instructional Coaching Despite Tight Budgets and Staffing Shortages
While school districts enjoyed record budgets over the last few years thanks to CARES, ESSER, and ARP dollars, district leaders are now wrestling with the challenge of reduced funding. The reality is that students’ increased needs persist as budgets are decreasing while costs are continually increasing. And, for districts facing declining enrollment, the funding gap is even larger.
Given this, returning to pre-pandemic budgets is not an option. Taking a strategic budgeting approach can help districts navigate and survive the funding cliff while preserving much needed services for students. This following post is part of our series, “Navigating—and Surviving—the Funding Cliff: Strategies for Maintaining ESSER-Funded Services Despite Declining Resources and Increasing Costs,” which shares best practices and actionable strategies for continuing to meet post-pandemic student needs and maximizing the impact of every dollar despite declining resources.
NAVIGATING—AND SURVIVING—THE FUNDING CLIFF
How to keep instructional coaching despite tight budgets and staffing shortages
Many school districts recognize the value of instructional coaching as the most effective means to improving teacher practice, and, as a result, the most impactful way to improve student outcomes. Lots of districts budgeted significant ESSER funds to add instructional coaches during the pandemic. Unfortunately, due to teacher shortages, many districts were unable to fill all these positions.
Facing the funding cliff, it might seem like these empty positions would be an easy line item to trim the budget. You couldn’t fill them anyhow, right? While it might be easy, it wouldn’t be strategic. Widespread teacher shortages have meant districts hired many new, less experienced teachers. New teachers want and need instructional coaching now, more than ever.
Provide extensive instructional coaching without adding FTE
So, what if I told you that you could provide instructional coaching without spending a lot and without hiring more teachers?
It is possible with a strategy called the “Teacher + Coach” already being implemented in a number of districts: in this model, highly effective classroom teachers are offered the opportunity to become an instructional coach while also remaining a full-time teacher. Since many teachers have second jobs that pay $5-10k per year either after school or in the summer, many love the idea of their “second job” at school during the school day.
Here’s how the Teacher + Coach model works:
At the secondary level, highly skilled core subject teachers agree to give up a prep period/duty for a $7,500 to $10,000 stipend to coach 5 -7 teachers in their department. Most schools start with math and English teachers.
At the elementary level, some classroom teachers get a similar stipend for coaching about five teachers. They leave their classroom for about an hour a day during the time when kids are taking quizzes, whole class read aloud, and other times of their choosing. Paras, student teachers, or assistant principals cover their class during this time. Sometimes the staff they are coaching come to observe them, so they needn’t leave their class every day or they can voluntarily opt to forgo a few prep periods as well.
If this is only offered to highly effective teachers, it is also a way of rewarding and acknowledging their expertise. Only teachers who are both selected by their principal and who wish to take on this added role should become Teacher + Coach. This approach does not add unwelcome responsibility to anyone’s plate, nor does pull a great teacher from the classroom. It connects new teachers with the much needed and highly valuable expertise of highly effective teachers already in the building. It’s win-win for all involved.
Where to find the funding?
Ok, Nate, it sounds good, but where am I going to find the funding? Interestingly, this approach is less costly than traditional coaching.
Here’s the math:
In the traditional coaching model, a full-time coach typically earns around $75,000 plus benefits, for a total cost to the district of $100,000. With a caseload of 15 teachers, the cost-per-teacher-coached is over $6,500.
In the Teacher + Coach model, the total cost to the district is the stipend of about $10,000 (benefits are already accounted for) for a caseload of five teachers, or a cost-per-teacher-coached of $2,000.
In this model, $100,000 dedicated to instructional coaching supports 50 teachers, not 15! And great teachers continue to teach kids as well.
A new coaching model for tight budget times and staffing shortages
With so many new teachers entering the classroom, finding a way to expand or maintain instructional coaching is imperative. While hiring additional instructional coaches might seem an impossibility, adding coaching capacity by offering a teacher + coach option is a realistic possibility given the times, and one that will likely be met with enthusiasm both from teachers and from the budget office.
To learn more, check out Nathan Levenson’s book:
Six Shifts to Improve Special Education and Other Interventions: A Commonsense Approach for School Leaders, Chapter 4.
