Hello world! It’s been almost a year since I’ve written a blog. What?!?! How is that even possible? It’s possible because teacher leaders are busy folks. Real talk. So much has happened in the last year including a move from the city that never sleeps to the city of angels. I absolutely adored my role as a Peer Collaborative Teacher at Bronx Studio School for Writers and Artists in the south Bronx but my husband was ready to leave New York and come to L.A. for warmer weather, a new job, and (his words, not mine) friendlier people.

I am in a new role as a Secondary Literacy Coach for School Transformation at the Partnership for Los Angeles Schools. It’s a new role for the organization and I am based 4 days a week at Edwin Markham Middle School in Watts where I support literacy instruction across our campus. (Go Eagles!) Every Friday I am at the Partnership offices downtown learning alongside my colleagues and building my coaching toolkit to take resources back to Markham.

I am enjoying the role and love that most of my time is spent on a middle school campus (which is absolutely gorgeous by the way). I definitely miss teaching students directly but I’m starting to build relationships with a few since I’m in their classes so frequently. So far, coaching is not as time-consuming as teaching, so I’ve decided to commit to publishing a blog on my coaching experience at least every other week. This counts as the first!

Some of the coaching topics I may explore are:

Building relationships with teachers and students
Key professional resources
The power of video
Instructional walks
The importance of regular check-ins
Managing it all - scheduling!

I hope that you’ll join me on this journey as I grow as a literacy coach. I’m hoping to inspire, inform, and connect with as many readers as possible.

Here’s to every student having an incredible English Language Arts teacher and every teacher having an incredible coach!