Everyone Needs a Coach

Early in this new year, I read an article published in EducationWeek online titled “These Principals Insist on Connecting Every Student to an Adult They Trust.” The story starts with an important question for traditional school leaders,

“How do principals ensure that students know they have at least one adult in the building they can rely on, and a group of peers who have their backs?”

The piece goes on to answer the question by stating,

“For many students, that one meaningful connection with a teacher or a custodian may be what brings them to school each day.”

“That’s why Julie Scott, the principal of R.L. Wright Elementary School in Sedgwick, Kansas, and Michael Bennett, the co-principal at York High School in York, Maine, purposefully dedicate time to ensure that staff and students work on building those important bonds.”

“In Kansas, Scott runs ‘family activity building,’ or FAB, which pairs a group of about 20 students from different grades with an adult – a teacher, a secretary, or a paraprofessional. They meet after school and focus on non-academic activities.”

“’It’s not an academic purpose,’ Scott said. ‘Our purpose is connection; our purpose is building those relationships within the school community.’”

“In Maine, Bennett runs Pride, a twice-a-week morning program, where students are put into groups of up to 10 classmates in the same grade and matched with an adult. The same adult stays with the group of students throughout high school. Older students also serve as ambassadors of sorts to help younger students.”

“The adults might inquire about how students are doing in class, their grades, and whether they need extra academic support. But the focus is on ‘supporting students’ social-emotional well-being and ensuring they build strong bonds throughout the building,’ Bennett said.”

“’It’s another set of eyes on our kids,’ he said.”

It seems like a no-brainer that principals and teachers would want every kid to have an adult inside their school that knows that kid and is able to relate to that kid. But that’s not how traditional schools often work.

I remember a year as a high school principal when we tried to do a similar project like Scott and Bennett. We already had freshmen advisory, where 9^th graders spent time with an adult leader learning how our school worked, how to address problems, how to relate to other kids and adults, and other types of transition topics. Based on the success of 9^th grade advisory, we decided to launch a school-wide advocacy program involving our 10^th thru 12^th graders. The idea behind advocacy was that kids could choose any adult inside the school, other than those teachers responsible for 9^th graders, and ask them to be their school advocate. The ratio was around 10 students to one adult advocate, and everyone in the school – custodians, paraprofessionals, teachers, administrators, and even me as the principal – were expected to participate.

When the day finally came for advocate selection, all the adults were seated around the school cafeteria, waiting for students to sign up for their advocacy. Some adults had lines of kids, way more than 10, attempting to sign up.  Most adults averaged between 10-15 students in line. Sadly, there were more adults than I expected that had no one in their line. That’s where the problems started.

After sign-up, I returned to my office to be greeted by a handful of those adults that no student picked as their advocate. And all of them were highly upset with me that I had somehow set them up for ridicule and embarrassment because not one student chose to choose them as their ally, as their cheerleader.

Those adults not selected wanted me to assign students to them, to prevent further personal embarrassment. I calmly told them no.

I told them it wasn’t my responsibility to build relationships between those adults not selected and students who would feel unempowered when they received their advocate by principal assignment. I told the five, and others who didn’t receive any student interest, that it was their lack of relationship-building that brought this on. I told them the only way they would end up with students in their line the next time is if they started to work on building relationships with kids beyond teaching curriculum to them.

The advocacy program was a great success for most of the kids who participated in it, but it was short-lived. You see the five that didn’t have any students sign up with them, and others like them, spent the entire years sabotaging our advocacy program. In the end, highly popular teachers wanted to end the program because they say it as too decisive inside the faculty ranks.

And that’s why I’m not hopeful programs like FAB or Pride can work in most traditional schools.

First, most adults, especially on the high school level, are convinced it’s not their job to take care of their students’ social and emotional issues. High school teachers, too many of them, love their curriculum more than their kids.

Second, too many parents these days don’t want school folk to help their kids with their day-to-day issues, for fear teachers and administrators might brain-wash their children with critical race theory and other liberal ideas.

Finally, most schools make decisions based on what is in the best interest of adults who work there, and not for the kids who go there. Even though I convinced myself I was a student-centered principal when it came to decision-making, in retrospect I made way too many decisions based on adult pressures than what kids needed – like my advocacy story above.

For young learners to really receive the right type of advocacy support, it will take a new type of adult learning leader – I like to call them learning coaches – to carry the day. Learning coaches that are chosen by their young learners as someone they would like to work with as they become smarter and stronger.

Without this change, I’m fearful our days will still be determined by a small group of adult saboteurs without any kids in their line.

Til tomorrow. SVB