Building Strong Teacher-Coach Relationships with Vernita Scarborough

Hello everybody and welcome to the TeacherCast educational network. My name is Jeff Bradbury. Thank you so much for joining us today and making TeacherCast your home for professional development. On this episode of Digital Learning today, we're gonna talk to an instructional coach that has not only an entrepreneurial side, but she has a complete program. And if you're looking to figure out how to get your instructional coaching headed in the right way, check this episode out. We're gonna be talking about coaching cycles. We're gonna be talking about walking into classrooms. We're gonna be talking about coaching pickup lines.

But most importantly, what is that relationship going to be between you and your teachers, you and your students, but you and also your administrators? And my guest today has an amazing story to tell. I hope you guys have a chance to check out this entire episode. Today's show is brought to you by my new book Impact Standards. If you're looking to build a framework for professional learning, how to build out your coaching program and do it so that way you're meeting the instructional standards brought forth by ISTE and ASCD,

Check out my book Impact Standards today. can head on over to teachercast.net slash standards and find out more information. You can get it over on Amazon, Kindle, Barnes and Nobles, and wherever you get your books. Hope you guys have a chance to check out Impact Standards today.

My guest today has spent nearly 15 years in education. She's an early childhood educator and a literary coach. She's the owner and founder of Literacy Lambs, an online educational company that provides professional development and local events designed to inspire educators to be their very best. And this year at the Simply Coaching Summit, she's doing a fantastic program called the Epic Instructional Coach.

I want to bring on today my good friend, Vernita Scarborough. Vernita, how are you today? Welcome to the show.

Thank you, how are you?

I am so happy

that you are here today. I'm so happy that we get a chance to catch up and learn a little bit about some of the great things that's going on in your world. Tell us a little bit about your background and what are you doing this time?

So I am currently a literacy coach in a small school in South Carolina. This is my 15th year in education. So it's been a while. I started off teaching first grade and I've also taught kindergarten. And so now I'm continuing to grow as a coach and help educators and students.

What is it like going from first grade and kindergarten straight to teaching adults?

It is very interesting. I really enjoy it. I was a little nervous, but I feel like I can remember being in that same position. And so just keeping that at the front of my mind helps me to better assist and ⁓ provide those coaching techniques.

Well, I'm glad that you brought that up. And like today we're going to talk a little bit about coaching techniques. We've got a wide audience today of instructional coaches. Talk to us a little bit about your day to day. What does instructional coaching look like for you? What does literacy coaching look like? How do you define your role to your peers and to administrators? What is it a literacy coach where you are?

So my

day to day, feel like it looks different each day. ⁓ But I start out just kind of doing some planning. A lot of our literacy blocks are a little bit later in the day. And so that gives me time in the morning to make sure that any teachers who need resources, I'm pulling those or doing, providing support with lesson plans, just looking over those things in the morning. And then I start to work with, we also have to do MTSS.

So that's another role that I play as a literacy coach in my district. We are the MCSS facilitators. And so that mid morning kind of looks like fidelity checks and providing support with that. And then I go, I'm able to support classrooms and we either in coaching cycles or walkthroughs and things like that and follow up during their planning times in the afternoon. So that's kind of what a typical day looks like for me.

That does sound pretty epic. And I'm excited about this because pretty soon at the Simply Coaching Summit, you're going to be a speaker there as long with Dr. Jim Knight, Gretchen Bridgers, Chrissy Beltran, Steph Howell, Allison Peterson, and of course, yourself. And your session is called the Epic Instructional Coach. What's it all about?

So

I'm super excited to be presenting at the coaching summit this summer. It is about my EPIC framework, and I've used this framework to help me as a coach in that transition from teacher to coach. And so EPIC is short for Establish the Vision, Prioritize, Implement, and Cultivate. And so in the session, I'm going to go through each of those stages and show coaches how they can use that each week to help in their planning and make sure that they get the most important tasks done each week.

How do they do that?

That is an awesome question. And so the prioritize, if I had to pull one out of those four, we're really going to talk about prioritizing because we can have 50 million things to do, but if we don't have any priorities, nothing's really going to get done. And so within that, we have to talk about eliminating some tasks and delegating some things to help us accomplish what we really have set out to do, which is in that establishing a vision portion.

You know, and I gotta say, that is one of the most important things that any instructional coach, whether you're new or been doing this for many years, needs to have a handle on because let's face it, the bell rings. Every classroom teacher starts talking. You're in the hallway, you're in the office, you're in the library. What do you do? How do you create your position? How do you create what you are there? What you're passionate about?

What advice do you have for new instructional coaches that are sitting there going, okay, I am at the end of the year. I'm looking forward to my next year could be my second year could be my 15th year. How do you plan out the fact that every day is going to be different? How do you keep that calendar completely full?

No trouble in keeping it full. My advice would be to set aside what are your goals. And so we can look at what the yearly goals are. And I like to base mine on what my principal's goals are, what are her goals for the year, and then breaking that down by quarters. So we're not going to be able to accomplish everything every single day. But I think just planning backwards, just kind of like your lesson planning, but using that backwards planning to help you break down from yearly to quarter to weekly.

and using that to help guide your plan for the week instead of trying to do it all. And that's something I had to learn. You can't do it all. And so just breaking that down piece by piece and doing just a little bit at a time, not overwhelm yourself or the teachers.

I gotta ask you, you just said that that's something that you had to learn. Where did you learn all this from?

Good question. I would say reflecting. That has been a big, big component of the Lessons Learned. Podcasts like this one have helped talking with other coaches and even my administrator, she has been an awesome resource just to provide that guidance from someone who has already been out of the classroom and has worked with adult learners. so various resources, even Facebook groups and reading things like that, that has really helped me to help.

Mmm.

solidify my coaching and just continue to be open and growing every day.

Having those mentors, having those resources, finding your professional development. That is absolutely what the Simply Coaching Summit is all about. It's going to be happening on July 6th through 8th. Again, amazing panel of educational instructional coaches. And I hope you guys have a chance to check it out. You can head on over to simply coaching.co to learn more and to figure out how you can bring professional learning into your instructional coaching program today. Now, Renita, let's talk a little bit about what your

take is this year on instructional coaching. There's so much that I'm seeing in the in the country that is, you know, changing, flipping, coaches are getting new jobs, coaches are losing their jobs, coaches are going into the classroom, coaches are turning into administrators. Where do you see the landscape of instructional coaching as we're heading into the summer of 26?

So for me, I see it as the embedded PD. ⁓ I see myself as a school resource and I try to keep it that way, ensure that I am helping teachers to meet those needs, kind of being like a bridge between what's required from the state, from the district, and then helping them to implement those practices within our school. And so coaching to me is a vital part of teaching.

And I always tell people whenever I started teaching, we didn't have instructional coaches. And so that's what makes me even more passionate about the role that I get to play is to help provide that in school support right hand on and just being that extra resource, a living resource. They don't have to go and look up something. I'm there. We can look it up together. And so I feel like coaches are a vital resource for education today.

What is your secret walking into classrooms or building that rapport with teachers?

I would say talking outside of the classroom and in a positive way. Just in the hallway, how's it going? How are you getting to know them, know, keeping it professional, but they know that I care. And then I always, whenever I do have to, you know, have difficult conversations, there's a preface about what's going positive and you know, I'm here to help. Let's look at this together.

⁓ I found that videos have worked well. They were able to kind of connect and watch each other, things like that. Just finding that common ground has been an excellent way for me to help build those connections.

back that up for a second. You said video what what what was that referring?

And so that is a part of what I've been using to help me in coaching cycles. ⁓ It used to be like a suggestion, hey, I think you should video, but I know whenever I taught, I videoed myself and it's like an eye opener. And so instead of me just telling what I see, they get to see themselves. And so as we talk about it, we are able to connect and make those conversations and we get to see each other just.

playing in real life, know, no filters or anything like that. And so with that, that portion of my coaching cycle, I feel like that has helped build relationships because they kind of look forward to it. They were nervous at first and then they are able to just grow from it. And so we grow together.

What does that look like? Is that you turning on your phone? Are you bringing in a full tripod and microphone setup?

So it is, it kind of goes in a three week cycle. The first week I meet with the teacher and we talk about what it is that she wants to work on. Well, she or he want, they want to work on. And so I asked them about, you know, do you feel comfortable recording yourself? And so I had them to, ⁓ however they want to do it is their laptop, their phone. The second week they go into their recording cycle. And then third week we look at it together and point out some things that we can use to help them grow.

And I found that it's worked really well. And even when I'm seeing them after the coaching cycle, hey, Ms. Garbrough, I tried the thing we talked about. And so I feel like they are, ⁓ really just building a strong relationship even through that coaching cycle.

I think that's amazing that you have the ability to put that together. that just download from camera stick in Google Drive? Like how was all that back and organized? How do you put it together? What does that look like for us?

So for now it looks like they pull it up and we look at it together. So wherever they have it saved. And I've had asked, I have asked some teachers to share some things to share for our drive for next year. But right now we have it, we're just pulling it up. There's no kind of formal process yet, but that's something in the works.

That is pretty awesome. What does it look like

when you're meeting with your administrators? I'm assuming that they know you videotape, but how what is that relationship like between you and your uppers? Do they do they get the role? Do they support the role? Do they know the right? How does all that come together? For you.

So there is tons

of support. I think that has helped in my growth as a coach. ⁓ We don't have an assistant principal, we have a principal and she is very open. She provides tons of feedback, tons of guidance, and she makes it clear what her expectations are, and then I'm able to carry those out with ⁓ the teachers. And so that relationship is a very positive one. And so...

I think the teachers see that and I think that just helps to build a ⁓ tighter community within our schools. Just having a positive culture between administrators, coaches and staff. And so all of it comes together very nicely.

How often do you have a chance to have a ⁓ meeting with your administrator?

A few times a week. We have our POCs, yeah, at least twice a week. And then we try to touch bases, if not quickly every day, at least every few days, just depending on what we have going on. But we typically kind of keep everybody in the loop. We all know what's going on and that really has helped in communication. We're very cohesive in our work together. I feel like that also trickles down to the children.

Really?

and their growth because they see us all on one accord. And so that helps.

Well, let's talk a little bit about how that whole flow works. We talk a lot here about data. ⁓ Do you collect data? Do you have a form that you fill out that says how many times you worked with so and so like, what does data collection look like if any at your school? Obviously, you mentioned you're doing videos and stuff like that. But at the end of a coaching cycle or throughout the process, what are you kind of recording in your notebook? And how does all that work? And what

if any gets shared with others. ⁓

So it's primarily

⁓ a Google doc and we typically take notes. I take the notes and I share them with the teacher and principal. And we just record what we plan to do, how it went, ⁓ and just observations. And then as far as like numerical data, we use more from test scores, of course, and then I do a lot with the writing. And so I have teachers record their writing scores every month on a form. And so that, not a form, a Google sheet.

And so I use that to kind of compare our growth over time. And that's really been helpful.

that sounds, I mean, you obviously look, you've got everything together. You've got a complete system here. How long did it take you to put this system together? Is this something that you inherited? Did you find it from somebody in your PLC? Like what was the process like of putting together this well oil machine?

It takes time. So this is my third year coaching and I feel like I'm starting to kind of get some systems in place and I'm already thinking about next year, you know, what needs to be tweaked? And I think just observing, talking to teachers about what works and what isn't working. And this is just going to help me refine it. But my first year, I can't say that it looked the same way that it does now. So being at the same school and getting to get those routines in place over time has helped.

Yep.

What does it look like for your communication process? it obviously you're talking to teachers constantly talking to administrators constantly, but are you running a newsletter, you're running a website, or you just constantly email? What does that that that hard communication look like?

Yeah. It's primarily email. ⁓ And like I said, we meet twice for PLC, so a lot is communicated there. But primarily email, and sometimes I'll drop by classrooms just to check in, see how things are going during the planning time, things like that. So a lot of it is just speaking aloud and communicating by email. I found that to be pretty efficient.

What's your advice for keeping a clean inbox?

That one I don't have. If you saw my inbox, and see I'm afraid to delete, I'm like, okay, I might need it later. So ⁓ I'm still working on that one.

You know, there's an

archive button that's right there. It just stares at you and says, use me.

See

So that will probably be a goal for next school year.

Speaking of next year, you know, again, there's a lot of coaches that are sitting here right now listening to this going, it's the end of the year. What do I do? How are you closing out your school year?

We are, of course we have testing coming

up, but we're closing out strong. A lot of the things that teachers haven't tried or we're looking to try, we're trying it now. And I'm telling them that this is the best time to try out those new resources or those new teaching strategies because you're familiar with the class, you already have your procedures down. And so you can go ahead before the school year is out, just try it out. And then when you come in next year, even with your new class, it's not completely brand new.

You've already experimented and tried some things. And so that's our way of closing out. It's just making sure that we finish strong and finding new resources and materials, try it out and prepare for next year.

I like that try it out thing. You know, so many coaches I've talked to in the last few weeks are saying, dude, it's, the middle of may teachers don't want you in the room. used to be Fridays. Nobody wants a coach. Now it's Wednesdays through Friday. Nobody wants to coach, right? Like there's so much stuff down there, but this is that time where you're building next year's relationships. You know, I would go into the teachers where I know who are not coming back. Hey, have you heard of Google transfer? Let me help you out. by the way, I know you're leaving. Let's try some

right? Like, can I help you build a portfolio for some other place that you're going to need help? Like I try to start coaching for even though they're not going to be around, let's coach them for some other person or some other coach there. And even the teachers that you are going to see next year, what can we do? What are you thinking about next year? Can I pull? What do want to do differently? I liked what you were doing. Can I just come in and hang out with the kids as the weather is getting warmer? Right? Like it's all those different opportunities, just to keep the relationships

yeah.

moving forward throughout the summer.

Right, I completely agree. It is a very good time. even teachers who may have been new to the school in August, we've built up a relationship now. And so it's a lot easier for me to speak with them as well. And so ⁓ I'm super excited, even though the year is coming to a close, the things that we're trying, the things that we're doing, the teachers' confidence, I feel like that's a big thing at this time of the year is they're more confident.

And so those ending relationships are key.

Now one thing I wanted to talk to you about is not necessarily the coaching that you're doing in the classroom, but the coaching you're doing out of the classroom. Talk to us about literacy lambs.

Yes, so Literacy Lambs

Local events help talk about relieving stress, ⁓ healthy eating, even finances. And so we're just helping equip teachers that way.

What is the mission for that? do people find out more information about it? ⁓

So we are on

Facebook, I tend to post ⁓ a lot there under literacy lambs, and Facebook and Instagram. And then I am also on LinkedIn, I post a lot for leaders and wellness there with Vernita Scarborough.

What's your school improvement plan going to look like now that the budget has passed? Where do you want to go? What do we have money for? What are you looking at? What advice do you have for instructional coaches who may or may not have the strongest relationships with their administrators? But we all need to set aside some time over the summertime when nobody else is in the building and just say, how can I help you? What are your goals? How can we align?

Right. You hit a key point there about when no one's in the building. Sometimes I realize how much administrators have to do. And coaching has helped me see that even more. And so I do like to find my principal when she does have like a quiet moment or I'll plan ahead of time, hey, is it okay if we talk on this day? And so I would say schedule a date so that you guys are both prepared. I would also keep say, keep a running list.

What I like to do is have a Google Doc, and I start this probably as early as January sometimes, of things that I want to do for the following year. And so just keep that running list. As soon as you think of something, type it down so it's not staying in your brain. But type that down on just a Google Doc. And then highlight some things that you want to bring out to your administrators so that you are showing that you're already prepared. And then just to kind of find out how those goes along with what they have in mind.

And is that something that you bring your thoughts to the table or do you let your administrator run wild and then you come back the next day? does, what are you, what do those conversations usually look like for you?

almost like a ping pong. I may have something and she provides feedback or it could be the opposite. So it kind of goes back and forth. And with the way we are very tight knit, it doesn't have to be anything formal. And so I may think of something and just send her a quick text while I'm thinking about it and we'll talk about it later. Or she'll say, hey, let's talk about this tomorrow. And so it just kind of goes back and forth between us. I'll say something, she gets feedback and vice versa.

Talked in today to Renita Scarborough, all about the great things that she's doing as an instructional coach. Also talking about her feature called the Epic Instructional Coach at this year's Simply Coaching Summit. Renita, before I let you go, I want to ask you a couple quick fire questions here, just off the top of your head. Give us the first thing that comes to mind for you as an educator, for you as an instructional coach. Can I throw a couple of things out your way?

Go ahead.

As an instructional coach, what's the one app that you can't never have next to you?

I would say Google Calendar. I use it to help plan my day. I get notifications on my phone, on my watch, and so that gets used a lot.

when you're walking down the hallway and you see a new teacher when you haven't yet connected, what's your pickup line?

Hey, how are you? And so I'm not a big talker, so it's pretty brief and then I gradually we get to know each other.

When somebody walks into your office, when they walk into your PD room, and they're all ready to start working with you, what is in front of you? plane or peanut &Ms?

I would love peanut.

Yes, definitely.

And finally, let's do this one because this is something I'm seeing a lot in Facebook groups. If you are looking for an instructional coaching job, what advice do you have? What do you bring with you to an interview? What should you be prepared as you walk into that room?

I would say have a portfolio ready. I feel like that really helped me just documenting what I did in my classroom since it was a new for me whenever I interviewed. And so having that portfolio with pictures and certificates and classroom examples, have that ready and be ready to talk about it. So use that to help you answer your questions.

Renita, you are an amazing guest and I hope that you have a chance to come back on the show sometime before the school year starts. I'd love to have you talk about those first few weeks and we can talk about not just the last 90 days of being a coach, but the first 90 days of being a coach. One last time, Renita, where can somebody get a hold of all the great things you're doing and how do they connect with you outside?

So Facebook and Instagram,

Literacy Lambs, and on LinkedIn, Vernita Scarborough.

We're going to make sure that we have all of those links and more including the full transcript of this podcast over on our website. You can find all of our shows over on teachercast.net slash podcast. This is digital learning today. You can also check out the Jeff Bradbury show. And if you go on over to ask the tech coach, you can find hundreds of instructional coaching podcasts all there waiting for you guys from the last 15 years of podcasting as part of the teacher cast educational network.

So I wanna say one more time, thank you so much to Vernita for coming on the show. I hope you guys have a chance to check out her session and mine over at the Simply Coaching Summit over at simplycoaching.co. And if you guys are making your way to ISTE this year, I'm looking forward to seeing you guys in Florida. Got some great sessions at the ISTE and ASCD conference. Hope to see you guys sometime this summer. And of course, don't forget to head on over to teachercast.net slash standards to check out my new book, Impact Standards and learn how you guys can build your coaching programs today.

And that wraps up this episode on behalf of Renita and everybody here on TeacherCast. My name is Jeff Bradbury, reminding you guys to keep up the great work in your classrooms and continue sharing your passions with your students.