Federal Way Public School District’s Instructional Coaching Model is built upon the following premise:

• The single most important factor affecting student achievement is teachers. (Sanders and Rivers).
• Teaching has 6-10 times as much impact on achievement than all other factors combined. (Mortimore and Sammons, 1987)
• Effective professional development for teachers must be on-going, deeply embedded into teachers’ classroom work with children, specific to grade levels or academic content, and focused on research-based approaches. (Russo, 2004)

Our district strives to create a sustainable culture of continuous professional learning for every member of the organization. We value a commitment to provide high quality instruction for our student and adult learners, understanding that what is great for one audience is also great for another. Instructional coaching represents one integral part of the magic that can bring to fruition a K – 12 community of professional learning.

Specifically, our coaching model’s purpose is to improve student achievement and teacher efficacy through the professional partnership between the Instructional Coach and the teacher. In an era of budget cuts, high stakes accountability, and standards based learning, the need to collaborate has never been greater.  Instructional coaching provides teachers with collaborative support to meet the needs of their students.

Therefore, the guiding principles of our coaching model represent a framework to guide our practice; these include building respectful collegial relationships, using data to drive coaching decision making, implementing differentiated coaching models to meet the needs of teachers, utilizing the three coaching venues: 1:1, small group, and whole group coaching, inspiring reflective practice, and honoring teacher directed goal setting. These guiding principles lead our journey to establish a sustainable instructional coaching model and a culture of professional learning for the purpose of improving student achievement.