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Innovations Ed, or Innovations Education Consulting, was contacted by the Utah School Board to do a comprehensive needs assessment at NS. They found NS being behind the bar in communication, diagnosing students’ needs and targeting professional learning opportunities.
Innovations Ed decided that NS needs their help.
Innovations Edis a program that partners with schools to implement collaborative team coaching and develop strong structural leadership and school improvement. They primarily focus on transforming leadership, school culture, and instruction to increase student success.
On Nov. 18 and 19, NS was observed and reported on by Innovations Ed. They found NS has succeeded in teachers having a positive impact on our students, having an abundance of choices for extracurriculars and having a sense of community at NS. The weaker areas that were found were providing more training for teachers working with students who have Individualized Education Programs (IEPs) or other special needs, helping make connections with student groups, friend groups, and cliques and expressing a want for school culture to be more positive.
Changing school culture is not an easy task, but with their collaborative coaching technique, they feel it is the most efficient strategy.
“Every school that we have worked with and use this process has always improved,” Lead Consultant Mindy Garrison said. “So I do think our system works, and I think it can bring great benefits and some great change to schools as far as improvement goes.”
While Innovations Ed has many ways to help teachers improve, sometimes the program is not always accepted.
“I think it’s a mind shift [getting teachers to use their plan],” Garrison said, “because you have different groups of staff who are feeling good about the plan that they have in place, but you may have some kind of dragging their feet. And in order to enact change, you definitely have to get everyone on board. So I think that’s the hardest part of creating change and improvement in schools to ultimately create a better outcome for students.”
Sometimes the hardest part about change isn’t accepting it, but the time it takes to change.
“Anything you’re ever trying to change always takes time,” Garrison said. “And so this isn’t something that you could put in place and in a couple months everyone is going to see a difference. This Elevate program, Year One, is going to focus on the needs and starting to put in place a plan for improvement. And the remaining 3 years is the work that needs to take place in order to make those improvements happen. So it’s definitely a labor of love, and it takes time across the board.”
Some at NS believe that change is something you need to choose instead of being told.
“I think nobody coming in and telling us what we need to do is going to improve us as teachers more than us just deciding to teach to the best of our abilities,” teacher Kolby Henrie said. “In my opinion, it’s a decision more than something to be told. We just need to make the choice to become better as teachers, and that would have a way bigger effect on kids’ learning, especially those who are struggling, than having someone come in and tell us what we need to do.”
Henrie isn’t the only one who recognizes the challenges behind making change.
“I think that a lot of the teachers here have their teaching style that they like and that they are already dedicated to,” junior Brogan Lucas said. “I don’t think that having extra perspective coming in is necessarily going to change how they operate their classrooms because most of the teachers here are very cemented into the teaching style that they enjoy.”
But other people think Innovations Ed could bring a change for the better.
“You’re going to see over the next 3-4 years a lot of changes happening in the school to match up with what is needed,” teacher Brian Holder said. “So, there are going to be some changes that have to come along that way, and I don’t know what that looks like until we actually start trying some of those things.”
While opinions vary on the effectiveness of external coaching, the ongoing collaboration between Innovations Ed and NS holds potential for change.
