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Home : 2008 : May : 28

Ontteacher
By Literacy Elf

The role is not without its' challenges.

I think it probably depends what Board you are working for as to what the role involves. As with all things there is a learning curve. I believe the role is fairly new
in Ontario. This is the second year my Board has had staffing for each school. I know some other Boards have a group of schools that they work with. In my Board the staffing allotment is based on enrollment so some schools have .1 FTE while other schools have .7 FTE. There is a lot of paperwork and data tracking, researching and maintaining resources etc. That takes a lot of time

for anyone, so those with only 10% of their time as coach must really struggle to stay on top of things. There is also a large percentage of time spent working with at-risk kids as well as working with classroom teachers/demo lessons etc. The job also involves a lot of planning and preparing for inservices and presentations. Above all else being a literacy coach is not an evaluative role. Evaluation is the job of admin --- support and collaboration is what the literacy coach does.

As for PLC's that also depends on the school and the budget for release time. Turn Around schools, CODE schools and OFIP schools have money for release time. Again that also varies with the label -- OFIP 1 vs OFIP 3 etc. I don't know how school that don't have a "label" generate the release time for PLC's. How the PLC's are structured seems to vary with the school. All include some sort of discussion about our School Improvement Plan and (now) our School Effectiveness Framework. We also look at the strategies that are working with our struggling kids. We usually do a book study of some sort --- Debbie Miller, Debbie Diller, Sue Brown, Miriam Trehearne. I know of other schools that seem to have much more freedom with the agenda. We have also included visits to other schools as part of our PLC's. We have developed lesson plans, literacy centres and organized our resources during PLC's. (Not always sure that what we do as PLC's meets the definition of true PLC's but that is a discussion for another time.)

There are several good books out there. Cathy Toll has two books for Literacy Coaches. Rita Bean also has a book. Your Board resource centre may have them or you can borrow them from the Margaret Wilson Library at the Ontario College of Teachers. (free shipping and handling).
I think there might be a couple podcasts on the ministry LNS website.

Sorry this has ended up so long. Not sure if any of it is helpful to you. There is lots more I can share with you. I think it is important to go into the position with your eyes open as to the realities of the role. It is a great opportunity to learn so much.

Now I have a couple questions for you. In your Board are these positions that you apply for with in your school or are the positions attached to group of schools? How long has your Board had the positions? What is the turn over rate of people who have held the position?