Partnership

At the end of each visit, Monica always provides the leadership team with a reflection of the week’s work as well as possible next steps for us to include in our year-long literacy plan. As a literacy coach, this feedback is invaluable to me as it structures the work that I continue to do between visits.  (Kimberly Shannon, Instructional Coach Pechersk School International, Kyiv, Ukraine)

Monica always makes herself available for support and guidance throughout the year for the teachers at our school. She has also created a website for our school where she provides resources, videos, and uploads any presentations and materials she has used during her visits. (Kimberly Shannon, Instructional Coach Pechersk School International, Kyiv, Ukraine)

At both schools Monica worked with the literacy committee to create a three-year literacy plan. The plan included the roll out of Writer’s Workshop, Reader’s Workshop, Phonics instruction, assessments, professional development and a timeline for implementation.  (Jessica Hicks, Principal, American International School Abuja and Escuela Americana El Salvador)

The additional steps of creating a Professional Development Plan, communicating the direction to all stakeholders, and using the goals to drive every administrative team agenda, were steps that readied the school for the deep change that was necessary to take the school to another level.   (Ann Kox, Superintendent, Wausaukee School District, USA and Principal, American School of Valencia, Spain)

Monica conducted classroom walkthroughs, observing teachers’ lesson delivery of the literacy program and providing positive feedback. She conducted model lessons at each grade level of the implementation of Writer’s Workshop. These lessons were invaluable and provided faculty with real world hands on training on how to successfully implement the curriculum effectively. (Jessica Hicks, Principal, American International School Abuja and Escuela Americana El Salvador)

The first time she came, she sat down with our committee and with her guidance we mapped out the next three years of implementation of writing and reading workshop and word study. This kind of planning was new to our district and exhilarating. We finally had a vision for how to make real change and she helped us realize all the steps we would need to take along the way to achieve our goals. (Bobbi Tracy, Wausaukee School, Wausaukee, Wisconsin)

Even prior to her arrival in the first year, Monica began to collect data and perceptions regarding the school. She involved all stakeholders in this assessment, which was then used to fashion long and short-term district-wide goals (which the school did not have). This critical step brought direction and discipline to the administrative team.  (Ann Kox, Superintendent, Wausaukee School District, USA and Principal, American School of Valencia, Spain)

After each visit she prepared a lengthy report, sharing next steps and never presuming that she was coming back, because we truly didn’t know if she would be able to return. The school had never invested in a trainer in this way.  (Ann Kox, Superintendent, Wausaukee School District, USA and Principal, American School of Valencia, Spain)

Her willingness to point us in the right direction with clear next steps, whether we continued to work with her or not, was a critical piece. She also provided two presentations to the Board of Education and one to parents. (Ann Kox, Superintendent, Wausaukee School District, USA and Principal, American School of Valencia, Spain)

The week before we left for the break, I was amazed by the power of the modeled writing. The stories live in the same place as our class poems – an A3 flip book with plastic sleeves. The children have every day access to this and use it daily!  As we were going through and re-reading our poems, the children said, “let’s do a story too!”  So we chose one of the stories and retold it from the beginning. The children remembered the motions and some of the repeated language that I had used in the story.  So powerful.  Thank you so much for teaching this powerful strategy to me.   Katy Hawkins, ACS Abu Dhabi