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A Day in the Life of an Instructional Coach with Multiple Campuses with Mallory Martin, ep. 234

Chrissy Beltran smiling and holding a hello sign. These words appear on the image "A day in the life of an instructional coach with multiple campuses with Mallory Martin".

This episode is sponsored by IRIS Connect


When I first started coaching, I asked what my workday would look like. My principal said, “Whatever you think.” While that wasn’t entirely true, it showed me there was some flexibility in the role.

It’s a moment I’ve thought about often, especially lately since I’ve gotten quite a few messages from instructional coaches asking, “What does a typical day as a coach even look like?”.

Today’s episode kicks off a new mini-series exploring a day in the life of an instructional coach. Wherever you are in your coaching journey, this series will help you navigate your coaching role more effectively.

If you’re new to coaching, this series will help you get a clearer picture of what your year might look like. And if you’re an established coach looking to make adjustments, you’ll find practical insights here to fine-tune your approach.

A Day in the Life of an Instructional Coach with Multiple Campuses

In this first episode of the series, you’ll get an insider’s look into a day in the life of an instructional coach with multiple campuses. Mallory Martin reveals how she balances priorities, builds strong relationships, and makes an impact on every campus she serves.

She walks us through a typical week, explaining how she manages her time across multiple campuses. Mallory offers her top six tips for staying organized, describes what it’s like working with three administrators, and how she builds meaningful relationships with teachers while working at different schools.

Here are a few key takeaways from our conversation. Be sure to listen to the full episode for all the details and tips Mallory shares.

Being an Instructional Coach for 5 Schools

Mallory explains what it’s like to be an instructional coach supporting five different campuses. In her role, she works with all licensed staff, including teachers but also non-instructional team members like nurses, psychologists, and occupational therapists.

She says she feels lucky to work with administrators who understand the importance of protecting her time. This lets her focus most of her effort on instructional coaching, and she’s rarely pulled to do other tasks unless it’s absolutely necessary.

Before becoming a traveling coach, Mallory spent 16 years as a traveling teacher. That experience gave her a clear advantage because the logistics weren’t a surprise, and she was primed to work at multiple locations.

Managing A Week in the Life of an Instructional Coach with Multiple Campuses

During the conversation, Mallory explains that she built her schedule around the needs of her schools, working closely with different administrators to develop a plan that ensures she’s available to the staff who seek her support. She discusses her exact schedule and how she remains flexible so she can be where she’s most needed by her teams.

In her first year as a coach, she rotated between campuses, visiting one site per day. During her second year, one school required more support because they had more teachers, so she shifted her schedule to spend more time there. This year, she’s prorating her time based on the level of demand for coaching at each site.

She notes that each approach has its advantages and disadvantages, but what’s worked best is having a consistent weekly schedule that repeats. This way, both administrators and teachers know exactly when they can expect her to be there.

A Closer Look at Mallory’s Organizational System

Back when Mallory was a traveling teacher, staying organized was talked about a lot! Over time, she’s distilled it down to six essential tips.

  1. Have a home base – A desk at one location that you don’t have to share, so you can leave your stuff there.
  2. A plan for your physical materials and resources – She keeps a “traveling office” (a Rubbermaid tub in the trunk of her car) with coaching books, extra notebooks, and pens.
  3. Keep your computer healthy – Shut it down at least once a week and keep it charged.
  4. A coaching binder that stays in her backpack – Mallory initially tried to keep everything digital. However, she prefers paper and pencil and gave herself permission to have one physical coaching binder. It contains one tab for each coaching client, loose-leaf paper, and some of her favorite coaching cheat sheets with questions and sentence starters. She reviews and cleans it out every two weeks to prevent it from getting too heavy.
  5. Keep all to-do items in one place – Avoid multiple Post-it notes or lists.
  6. Maintain one database with all staff info – Mallory says it can be digital or physical. She uses a single spreadsheet to track everyone, which helps avoid the risk of forgetting any staff members.

Working with Multiple Administrators as a Traveling Coach

Mallory describes what it’s like working with multiple administrators. She discusses the importance of having supportive administrators who trust her to make decisions about her schedules. Her administrators have given her the flexibility to move between schools based on where she’s most needed.

Coaching on multiple campuses has been a positive experience, and she’s grateful for her administrators’ support because it allows her to focus on her coaching work. She acknowledges that this isn’t the case in all districts and there are challenges when working in a large district with multiple schools.

She recognizes that each school has its own culture and adjusts her approach based on who she’s working with. Mallory also understands that each principal must ultimately make decisions that are best for the school.

Building Trust and Relationships with Staff Across Multiple Campuses

During our conversation, Mallory shares her approach to building trust and relationships with her teams. These are the key strategies she uses across campuses:

  • Being intentionally present and visible – Mallory walks around each morning and says hi to everyone. She also has spontaneous conversations in the hallway and at the copy machine.
  • Check-in with everyone – She checks in with everyone and builds genuine connections, ensuring every educator feels seen and heard.
  • Inserting herself in meetings – Mallory speaks up in meetings, so the staff perceives her as an important part of the school and sees her participation.
  • Overcoming personal discomfort – It’s scary to put yourself out there, but Mallory says she had to coach herself through that. She stresses that it’s more important to make connections than staying in your comfort zone.

A Day in the Life of an Instructional Coach with Multiple Campuses

Wow! What an informative conversation with Mallory about a day in the life of an instructional coach with multiple campuses!

She shared many valuable insights into fundamental pieces of coaching, like the importance of talking to people and being visible. I especially appreciated the tips on staying organized and managing time across multiple schools.

You won’t want to miss the practical strategies packed in this episode! Listen now using the player below or wherever you get your podcasts!

Topics and Questions Discussed in Episode 234 – A Day in the Life of an Instructional Coach with Multiple Campuses with Mallory Martin

  • A look at a day in the life of an instructional coach with multiple campuses
  • Mallory’s weekly coaching schedule
  • Balancing coaching and PLCs
  • How Mallory manages her time across her five sites
  • Mallory’s organizational system and her top six tips
  • What it’s like working with different administrators
  • Building trust and relationships with teachers across campuses
  • Challenges and strategies for coaching multiple schools

Want to set up a strong foundation for your coaching role that lines up with your vision, goals, and priorities? Sign up for my free Jump Start Mini Course. It’s designed to help you create a plan that reflects your school’s needs, key goals, and effective strategies to support growth.

This episode is sponsored by IRIS Connect. IRIS Connect helps you streamline teacher development with the world’s most advanced PD facilitation system.

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Podcast produced by Fernie Ceniceros

A Day in the Life of an Instructional Coach with Multiple Campuses with Mallory Martin, ep. 234, Instructional Coaching with Ms. B Podcast

Chrissy Beltran  00:00

Hey, coaches, it’s time for the event of the year, and this year it’s even bigger. The simply impact Summit, formerly simply coaching Summit, is my favorite coaching conference of the summer, and this July, it’s even more incredible. Administrators, teachers and all school leaders are invited to the summit. There will be sessions designed for different audiences to make sure everyone gets what they need to have an amazing school year. Keynote speakers like my friend Nicole Turner, Dr Jan Birkins and Carrie Yates, authors of the science of reading book, shifting the balance and Dr Sean Woodley, behavior and management guru will share their knowledge and inspire us. And I can’t wait. I’m presenting high impact coaching strategy improving the effectiveness of the coaching strategy that you already use. This session will walk you through this coaching strategy that will create the biggest impact on your teachers and classrooms. You’ll learn when to use each one, how to make each one effective and purposeful, and all of the tips I’ve learned when using these strategies with teachers, if you felt like co teaching or observations just aren’t cutting it, this session is for you. Save your spot for the simply impact summit this July, 14 through 16th, so you don’t miss out on all the incredible learning and fun. I love a good PD, but I really love a good PD from home. Register for the summit and get all the tools you need to make the school year a great one. Head to buzzing with miss b.com/summit to save your spot, the sooner, the better for awesome pricing.

Chrissy Beltran  01:23

Instructional coaches, support everyone, the new teacher, the veteran teacher, and everything in between. Sometimes figuring out the best way to support each person and finding the time to do it is nearly impossible. That’s why I’m excited to share about Iris Connect. With this tool you can record lessons safely and securely, summarize them with incredible AI technology, and find the exact moment you need to discuss with a teacher to support their growth instead of spending hours in a handful of classrooms, you can use Iris Connect to guide teachers through the basics with a personalized PD Plan, and then meet with them when they’re ready for the next challenge. One feature I love is adaptive pathways. Pathways guide teachers through a step by step learning journey that includes expert models, classroom video, reflection, prompts and applied practice all in one place. You can use ready made templates or create your own learning journey, great for onboarding teachers who are new to your school, or for a refresher course, you choose the focus for the learning and pathways documents, the progress everything is in one integrated space, so you juggle less paperwork, and teachers do too. Iris connect pathways are an amazing way to support all of your teachers, so you can focus your one on one coaching time where it’s really needed. Head to Iris connect.com for a free trial, plus, when you mention this ad, you’ll get 10% off your first user license. Get started with Iris Connect to make a bigger impact more efficiently.

Chrissy Beltran  02:43

Welcome to instructional coaching with Miss B where we believe that every teacher deserves a coach, and every coach does too. I’m Chrissie Beltran, an elementary teacher who became a coach, and I had to create my own coaching program that worked now. I teach coaches how to design their coaching programs, build a school wide action plan and use differentiated strategies to support teachers. Plus, I’ve got a special spot in my heart for literacy coaches. Now let’s dig into the episode.

Chrissy Beltran  03:10

Hey coach and welcome to episode 234, of instructional coaching with myth B. Today, we are starting a new mini series all about a day in the life of an instructional coach. This is something that I have seen requested. People want to know, what does this role look like, and if you are new to coaching, this can be really helpful to you as you’re figuring out what your year could look like in the fall. If you’re an established coach and you’re trying to make some adjustments, this might be helpful too, because trying to juggle different roles and different school, different coaching, different coaching roles work in different ways. So I think that you will get something out of the next few episodes in this mini series no matter what your role is, because we all have to manage different kinds of things, and we make them work for us, and you might find some ways to help you do that in your current role. I also want you to grab my jumpstart mini course. It’s a startup mini course for you that comes straight to your inbox. You can grab it at buzzing with Miss b.com/jump, start, and it will walk you through setting the foundation for a strong coaching role with your vision, your goals, everything lined up so that you know exactly how you want to spend your time this school year. That’s at buzzing with Miss b.com/jump, start. Before we get started, I’m going to share just a little bit about whenever I was first hired. Was first hired as a coach. I actually, I interviewed for the position, and I got it, and I can remember saying, Well, what will my days look like? And the principal said, Whatever you think. That wasn’t entirely true. I’m sure if you’ve been in any position in education for any length of time. You are not surprised to find that that’s not completely true. They were not whatever I needed them to be. However, I did have a lot of flexibility within those days. So it’s not like when you’re a teacher and you’re in a classroom all day, you’re shutting through a room all day with kids, and you have to figure out maybe your schedule, but that’s based. Based on specific components and how you spend your time. When you’re a coach, you have certain blocks of time that are blocked off, like this is going to be. You know, our weekly PLC meetings are going on Tuesdays, and that’s non negotiable, that I’ve got to be present for those, and I have to prepare for those on Monday, etc. However, there’s lots of white faith in between those blocks of time, and you have to figure out how to spend it. And so not having a clearly defined role, not having goals that you’re trying to work toward, just trying to make teaching better is not really going to help you focus that time well. So the first steps that I can suggest to you, if you feel like you are not spending your time in the ways that would be the most beneficial to your school. You need to get really clear on what your school needs, what your goals are that will help them grow in these areas, and how you can support it. And once you can identify those things, then you can look at your calendar and look at all that white space and say, Now I know what to do with this time that I have. I wasn’t sure I really was going to work on this, but now I’m realizing I need to focus on this other thing, because this is what’s going to help me reach the goals that I have. And actually, that’s what the Jumpstart course is designed to do. It’s designed to help you figure out how to structure your day based on these important things. Like you can’t figure out what your day looks like until you know what is important to you. So jump start helps you identify what’s important about your coaching role so that you can actually plan your work around it. You can also get my startup course buzzing within the speed.com startup that is not open yet, but you can join the wait list and you will get a handy dandy coop on what it opens. So without further ado, we’re going to welcome my guest, Mallory. Mallory is going to help us think today about what it’s like to be a coach that serves several different buildings, you know, multiple schools. And this is a question I’ve gotten from a lot of you, so I’m really excited to talk to Mallory about this today. So let’s welcome Mallory. Thank you so much for being here, and we really appreciate it. Welcome.

Mallory Martin  06:58

Thank you. Nice to meet you. Chrissy.

Chrissy Beltran  07:02

Oh, thank you. You too. I would love for you to introduce yourself by sharing a few things with us, if you could. Who do you help and how do you spend most of your time and energy at work? Of course. So

Mallory Martin  07:13

officially, through my instructional coaching role, I help all licensed staff, which not only includes teachers, but also non instructional staff, such as nurses, psychologists, occupational therapists. In fact, that’s kind of one of my passion areas, is working with those non instructional staff and just showing how coaching can support anybody, whether you are delivering instruction or not, as far as my time and energy, I really do get to spend most of my time on actual instructional coaching, which I’m very grateful for, because I know a lot of other coaches are sometimes put into subbing or supervision or those kind of tasks, but I’m grateful that my administrators understand the importance of protecting my time, and so they rarely ask me to do any of those other kinds of tasks unless it’s absolutely needed. So great.

Chrissy Beltran  08:07

And then my other question is a little bit of a passion project of mine. This year, I’m trying to share hobbies with people, because I feel like we spend so much of our time throwing ourselves into work and not enough time doing things we love. So what is a hobby that you love?

Mallory Martin  08:20

Yeah, thank you for asking. I have done a lot of hobbies over the course of my life. Probably my favorite one is I actually used to shoot competitive archery, and I hope to get back into that once my kids get a little older. Currently, I do crossword puzzles, Color by Number. I do some video gaming. My husband and I enjoy tabletop gaming, and we really have been into legacy board games lately. Oh

Chrissy Beltran  08:44

how fun. I love board game. I love board games, but my husband does not play board game. He is anti game.

08:51

Oh no. I guess I’m lucky that gaming partner.

Chrissy Beltran  08:57

Whenever my brothers come into town, I’m always like, let’s play games, because they’re my but they’re the people who will play with me, or my brothers and my mom. My husband is not into it. He’s just the worst.

Mallory Martin  09:08

And I will say my kids play hockey. So kind of being a hockey mom kind of is its own hobby, like six months out of the year. So yeah,

Chrissy Beltran  09:16

I totally get that. Well, thank you so much for sharing that we’re talking today about, sort of a day in the life of coaching and your role, specifically that you serve multiple building, is a question that I get a lot. So coaches try to figure out, like, how to spend their time, how do they juggle different buildings? What did that scheduling look like? How do you build relationships across different buildings? And it’s just a kind of a different animal. So if you could walk us through a day in the life of coaching multiple buildings, or you could do like, a week in the life, if that’s better, because it’s, you know, obviously different schools, if you can share about that, that might help paint a picture of what it could look like, yeah, of course.

Mallory Martin  09:55

So I will say I had a slight advantage coming into this position, in that I was a traveling. Teacher for 16 years before I became a coach. So a lot of the kind of logistics of the job weren’t a surprise for me, and I was already kind of primed to serve multiple locations, but I do schedule kind of a week at a time. My first year, what we did was I essentially had five sites that I was visiting. So I scheduled by site where I went to one site, one physical site every day, and that worked out. So Mondays, I was always at the same place, and that was a nice predictability for the staff that I worked with. My second year, we realized that I was needed more at the site that had more staff, so we made my weekly schedule based on we kind of prorated it based on the number of staff that I would be serving. So my two larger schools got a day and a half of me a week, and then my smaller sites only got one day a week. And then this year, I am, again, kind of prorating my time, but I’m doing it more based on the demand for coaching, because one of my smaller sites this year actually has the most people signed up for coaching cycles. So I’m spending more time this year at the site that has the highest demand for coaching. So there’s, you know, there’s advantages and disadvantages to doing it each way. But what has worked the best is to have just one consistent weekly schedule that repeats, so the administrators know when I will be there, and then the teachers know when to expect me as well. That’s

Chrissy Beltran  11:34

interesting. So then this year that you’re saying there’s more demand for coaching cycles, what does your schedule look like? Like Monday through Friday.

Mallory Martin  11:42

So Monday and Thursday actually serve an online school. So on those days we we do have an office, and we also have, through our teacher contractor, allowed to work from home. So I might go into the office, I might work from home, and then we also have some teachers who are part time online and part time in person. So I might spend my online days driving to those schools where those teachers have their second job and meeting with them face to face at those schools. And then Tuesdays and Friday mornings I am at our alternative high school, which is one of the sites that I support, and then Wednesdays and Friday afternoons, I am at our transition program, which is the 18 to 20 year on year old special ed program. And that’s the site where I’m getting the most coaching. So honestly, most of my Wednesdays are spent in coaching sessions, and then the other days is where I might do my email catch up, or my, you know, background work, or reading that I’m doing for clients, things like that,

Chrissy Beltran  12:45

that’s interesting do. So then what I’m hearing is that you do not facilitate meeting

Mallory Martin  12:52

occasionally, occasionally. Last year, I did facilitate a year long PLC process, and this year that was put back on the principles. So I’ve done a few kind of one off things where a topic came up, and I’ve done a book talk at a staff meeting, or I’ve led one of our fun staff meetings for the online schools. We did Virtual Learning walks during a staff meeting, and that was something that I led so it just, it kind of comes and goes as needed. Yes,

Chrissy Beltran  13:24

so then, like last year, whenever you had this is one of the questions that I’ve gotten, is they people are like, do I schedule myself at a school on the day they have their PLC meeting, but then I don’t get much coaching time? Or do I schedule myself in a day they don’t but then I’m not able to support this what’s happening in PLC meeting, was that ever like a dilemma for you when you were leading that school through that process? Yes,

Mallory Martin  13:46

and so my three administrators, I’m so grateful. They work together very well, and they were able to sit down and say, Okay, we want it. We want Mallory on Wednesdays for this meeting. Okay, you can have her on Wednesdays. We want her on Tuesday afternoons for this meeting. And so they actually, collaboratively, were able to flex their meeting schedule based on whether they needed me there or not. And of course, I’m not that important that they’re going to make their entire building schedule around me, but there were a few meetings where they were able to have that flexibility. So if the coach is the one making that decision,

Chrissy Beltran  14:28

personally, it just in my coaching experience, I would lean more towards the individual coaching support, because that’s where I feel the most effective as a coach. But again, if PLC is where you’re most needed and where you’re most effective, then you might want to lean into that. Yeah, getting that input from the principal could be helpful, because if they have those really big initiatives that they’re trying to, like, establish, we are going to make this work this year, then you might want to be a part of that. So it just kind of depends, I guess, on your the school that you’re working with, and let your admin one, yeah.

Mallory Martin  14:56

And this year, our district actually came out with. District wide PLC schedule. So this year, all of my schools have PLCs at the same time as each other, and same thing with building leadership team meetings, those are all happening at the same time. So this year, I have had to make some hard decisions, and I’m really grateful that my administrators trust me and they give me the flexibility to be where I’m needed. So if I need to say to one site, hey, this other school needs me more, I’m going to go to their meeting today instead of yours. They say, Okay, we know that you’re needed there. We know that you’re going to come back to us and give us the support that we need.

Chrissy Beltran  15:35

That makes a lot of sense. I really love that. The flexibility that’s great. Yes, do you have any other thoughts on managing your time between campuses? You mentioned this year that you are basing it on coaching need, and is that, like, individual teachers have requested that, you know, what did that look like that? Yes, like, where is that coming from?

Mallory Martin  15:54

It’s Well, originally, like I said, it was more logistical based on, like, the number of sites or the number of teachers. And this year, I kind of looked at it as I want to make myself available for the staff who want my help. And we in our district where I’m very lucky that coaching is voluntary. For the most part, there’s a small number of staff who have to work with the coach, and that’s involved in the probationary contract for the for a newer staff, but I was able to have that flexibility to say I wanted here, which feels great, and then focus most of my time on that. And of course, I checked that with the administrators. You know, I said, here’s what I’m seeing. It are the needs from our educators. Here’s what I see. Are your needs for your staff meetings and your leadership meetings. And then I kind of developed a proposal, and I proposed it to them, and luckily, they all accepted it, right?

Chrissy Beltran  16:50

How do you how do teachers request your coaching support?

Mallory Martin  16:54

They just tell me, okay, I it’s, yeah, it’s just a verbal conversation. I’ve I have a Google form, but I don’t think anybody’s ever filled it out. I, you know, I don’t like to make people jump through hoops, yeah. And so for me, it just feels more natural to just talk to people,

Chrissy Beltran  17:13

yeah, if they’re able to communicate with you, like, if you’re there often enough and then present often enough, then they can let you know in person,

Mallory Martin  17:19

yes. And that was one thing I found out early on, is that you kind of have to insert yourself. You have to be present. You have to go around the hallway and say hi to everybody you know, as many people as you can, because if they don’t see you walking in and saying hi there, you don’t have that in and they don’t have that opportunity. And there have been so many times where I just I just, I walk past somebody at the copy machine, and they’re like, Oh, actually, Valerie, I was meaning to ask you something. So if I hadn’t been out making myself present and available, like in the hallways and in the workroom and in the teachers lounge, you know that it’s that presence and that reaching out and just saying hi to people, that kind of gives you the in and gives you those opportunities. Yeah,

Chrissy Beltran  18:04

that’s such a good point. I have a question about your organizational system. So, like, whenever you are working with multiple campuses, keeping materials organized, keeping things, you know, separate, but you know, also be able to access everything you need when you need it. How do you do that? How do you manage all of this stuff?

Mallory Martin  18:22

Yeah, that’s such a good question. And back when I was a traveling teacher, it was something that we talked about a lot. So I kind of have distilled it down to like six, kind of a major tips. I guess the first one is to just have a home base, have a desk that you don’t have to share, or have a school where you feel like it’s your home base, and I feel like that’s just a psychological need of humans, and I, again, I’m lucky that one of my administrators was able to provide a desk space for me that I don’t have to share, actually, two of them now that I don’t have to share with anybody else, so I can put a book down with a bookmark in it and know that it’s going to be there when I come back. So you need a home base and you need an administrator to cooperate with you in order to be able to provide that. My second tip is just to have a plan for your physical materials and resources, because you’re all over, there’s going to be a time where you find yourself at one location and you need something that’s at another location. So I tried to proactively plan, like, am I only going to need this book at this school? Then I can leave it here if I see a need where I will need it at more than one site. I actually have what I call my traveling office, which is a Rubbermaid tub in the trunk of my car, and so that’s where I keep my coaching books and my, you know, extra notebooks and my extra pens and all that. Where it just, it just stays with me and it travels with me that made them My third tip is to keep your computer healthy and. Um, you have to shut it down at least once a week. I know people don’t like closing out of their tabs, but you got to keep it charged. You got to, you know, remember to shut it down, because that will, in the long term, make your life better. My fourth tip, and this is something that I’ve actually kind of gone back on. I originally said, to keep everything digital, and what I found for myself is that I’m a paper pencil person, so what I have done is I’ve given myself permission to have one coaching binder that stays in my backpack, and I’m really intentional about only putting in there the stuff that’s very essential for my coaching, and I go through probably every two weeks and just call and take out things that I don’t need anymore, so that it doesn’t become a huge weight on my shoulders, like literally, as I’m carrying it. But anything that you can keep digitally, it’s so much easier, because then it’s on your computer, right? And you’d have it everywhere, yes, of course.

Chrissy Beltran  21:02

The things do you have in there, like right now? What? What in there?

Mallory Martin  21:05

In my coaching binder, I have one tab for each coaching client who is on a cycle, if I’m meeting with somebody more informally, I just keep those notes on my computer. So I have a tab for each client who’s on a coaching cycle. I have loose leaf paper, and I have some of my favorite coaching cheat sheets with my, like, favorite Coaching Questions and sentence starters. So if I’m in a conversation with somebody and I’m like, Oh, I know Elena Aguilar would have the best question to ask. I have a photocopy that I can just pull out. Okay,

Chrissy Beltran  21:39

that makes them wanted to know, yeah.

Mallory Martin  21:44

My fifth tip is to keep all of your to do items in one place, no post it notes, no multiple to do lists. If it’s in one place, it’s more likely to actually get done. And then my sixth tip is have one database with all of your staff information. So whether that’s a spreadsheet, whether that’s a physical notebook, whether it’s connect hub, I tried having three different spreadsheets my first year, and people got forgotten, and that felt awful, so I just have one spreadsheet where I keep all of my staff information.

Chrissy Beltran  22:19

Yeah, that’s really good. Those are very good tips.

22:21

Thanks.

Chrissy Beltran  22:25

How has you felt like you’ve had a really good experience in working with administrators from different campuses? What did what? What did that been like for you? You know, in more detail, maybe like, what has it been like working with different administration? Is there, like, alignment across your schools? You mentioned, like a common PLC meeting day. But is that like something your district is pushing toward? How has it been navigating these different schools? Yeah,

Mallory Martin  22:47

that’s a good question. Obviously, each school has its own culture, right? So I kind of find myself adjusting my approach based on who’s in front of me, whether it’s the administrator I’m talking to, or a coaching client, or somebody who is more likely to pick up the phone than they are to reply to an email I just I kind of read who’s in front of me, or maybe it’s even at a staff meeting, and I adjust my approach based on that, as far as the alignment between sites, again, that goes back to my administrators really trusting me and providing me that flexibility where I can I do feel like I have the freedom to leave if I need to, and go somewhere else if I’m needed more at another site. I think I do like the idea of having the PLC time consistent across the district, because it provides opportunities for teachers to, like zoom with other teachers in different schools during that time. So I think that was a really cool initiative to have that schedule alignment district wide. It just again, it makes it difficult for people who are traveling staff, because we can’t be in more than one place at one time. But you know, it’s got its advantages and disadvantages. And again, my three administrators work together really well, and they all support coaching. And I’m not the only staff member they share. There are a few other staff members that share my same schools, so the three of them do talk a lot about different things. So they’re kind of used to working together and teaming together, even though they’re each their own person. And you know, every person has their different strengths and experiences and philosophies. I feel very supported, and I am, I am grateful, and I know that not everyone feels that feels as supported. So I’m, I am very happy and grateful for that support.

Chrissy Beltran  24:43

Yeah, it sounds, it sounds pretty much a best case scenario, as well, as far as working with different schools, because many schools do not have, I feel like that communication across the administration, and I mean, especially, you know, big, really, I don’t how big is your district? Yeah. Um, it’s

Mallory Martin  25:00

pretty big. I we have at least 1500 teachers. We have three traditional high schools and four middle schools and probably about 15 elementaries.

Chrissy Beltran  25:12

Okay, so pretty big. Yeah, yeah, good, yeah. I, I think about the communication that our administrators had, and I come from a district that had, I want to say, between 50 and 60 school total, and seven high school, and, you know, all the feeder patterns. And it just, I feel like we tend to see like, the bigger the district get, the worse the community, the worse the alignment is, because it’s so hard to get everybody on the same page. There’s just so many factors, you know, going on, and so many different initiatives that principals have assigned so they they make this valued effort to do certain things that align certain pieces, but it is difficult. Bigger the bigger the district get, seems like the harder it to align. Smaller districts have different challenges, you know,

Mallory Martin  25:59

right, right, I think. And a lot does come down to the administrators, right? Because they can have their principal meeting and they and they’re in the room and they come to an agreement. And the reality is, when they go back to their buildings, they each have a different reality to deal with, and they have to make the choice that is best for their school. So yeah, there isn’t always alignment, but I know they’re all they’re all doing their best, yeah,

Chrissy Beltran  26:24

yeah. We see that with it’s the same thing with teachers that, you know, we get people together in a room, we say, Okay, this is what we’re going to do, and then everybody goes back to their classroom, and that may or may not be whatever, right? Yeah, for one reason or another, yeah, for one reason or another, right? So you mentioned earlier about being present, you know, being visible, making sure teachers knew who you were and you, you know, were communicating with them frequently. What are some of the other things that you’ve done to build relationships with teachers across different

Mallory Martin  26:51

campuses? Honestly, that was the biggest thing. Is just being intentional about saying hi to everybody. And most mornings, when I get in, I dump my stuff on my desk and I take my coat off, I don’t even turn on my computer. I just go start walking around and saying hi to everyone, and how’s your dog and How’s your mom doing, and how was your weekend? And it’s not, you know, I don’t have any it’s not like I’m trying to sneaky coach anybody. It’s just that I feel like everybody deserves to feel seen and heard by their coach. Everybody deserves to have someone checking in on them who isn’t an administrator. And again, a lot of those ins that you’re going to have with a coaching client come up spontaneously, and that can’t happen if you’re not out talking to people saying hi in the hallways. One year, I had a workspace, a desk that was right next to the copy machine, and I, I mean, there was no privacy, so I had to find some to go for my coaching sessions. But it was great because somebody would come make a copy, and I’d be like, Hey, how’d that lesson go yesterday? And then pull it off the copy machine and say, Look what I just did. So I really have to kind of force myself to just do that. You go around and literally just talk to people and have those conversations. Because there isn’t a single educator in that building who doesn’t deserve your attention, even though they might resist and they might push back on the coaching piece, they still, you know, they deserve you checking in, yeah, and also inserting yourself in meetings too. You know, if I go to a meeting, I want to make sure I say something before the meeting is over, even if I don’t necessarily feel like I have something valuable to offer. The only way that the staff are going to perceive me as an important part of the building is if they hear My voice and they see my participation, and again, just making that presence.

Chrissy Beltran  28:54

That’s a good point, because, as you know, somebody who was a teacher and a coach who worked with people who would come in and out like they would come to our building, maybe go to building, maybe go to other building. They were maybe some support staff. They serve different roles with, if you are not. I mean, there were times whenever three months would pass and I would not know who these people were. You know what? I mean, they were there to work with fifth grade, or they were there to work with first grade, and that was it. And we didn’t know who they were. They were not. We never really were introduced. And it was just kind of weird, just kind of a strange like, Oh, hello, there’s that person, you know, that’s here sometimes, and we don’t know what she does. It’s just kind of an odd thing. And so I think that that you really do have to make an effort. It’s not like whenever you’re a coach at a campus all the time, and yes, you’re present in almost every meeting. You’re present all the time. You’re visible because that’s your home campus. You’re always there. But if you’re there for half a day a week or a day a week, you’ve got to be really intentional with getting out and meeting people and having those conversations to start building those bridges. I think that’s such a good point. Yeah, and

Mallory Martin  29:58

I. Can feel it when I don’t do it, like if I’m home with a sick child, or if I’m out at a professional conference, or if I just get so bogged down with emails that I’m sitting at my computer all day, I feel disconnected from that school. And you know, part of me it’s scary sometimes to put yourself out there, but I’ve had to coach myself through that and say it’s more important to make this connection with this person than it is to, you know, stay inside your own comfort zone that you’ve defined for yourself,

Chrissy Beltran  30:30

right? Yes, that makes that a personality. Different personalities, you know, struggle with that. Some of us struggle with that more. I’m not. I’m not naturally like an overtly, randomly friendly person. I was raised that way. I was raising my job. That’s just the truth. I mean, I’m not saying it’s the right way, but that’s how we were. And so it is absolute work for me to be like, Hey, how you doing? What’s going on? You want to show me? I But it is, it is work that if you don’t do it, you can’t do your job. So it’s, it’s not exactly my personality. It’s, well, we have to make an effort to do these things, because that is a piece of your job, and it’s the only way you’re going to build those bridges. It doesn’t everybody does it differently, but you have to get out there and do it. It can look different

Mallory Martin  31:13

and and I will say that there are staff in our buildings who are perceived as resistors, and I’ve been invited in because they trust me, because I spent time, you know, going into their classrooms, building those conversations, talking about hunting and fishing and hockey and visits to hospitals with sick mothers and like, When you get to know people and you’re in there, then they trust you. And I actually had one person say to me, if I didn’t trust you, I wouldn’t be telling you this stuff. And I thought that was that. And I said, Thank you. Thank you for trusting me, because I recognize what a gift that was.

Chrissy Beltran  31:59

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that’s great. Well, thank you so much for sharing all of this. Is there any way that people can learn more from you if they have questions?

Mallory Martin  32:09

So I don’t really use social media, partially for my own mental health, but also partially because I don’t want to be a contributor to the system. I do have an account on LinkedIn, and my LinkedIn account is Mallory Martin, 15, okay, so I could get messages on LinkedIn through that perfect

Chrissy Beltran  32:31

All right. Well, thank you so much, Mallory. Thank you. I love chatting with Mallory because I think she had some really great insights into just some really fundamental pieces of coaching. You have to talk to people no matter what your role is, whether you’re at your home campus, whether you’ve covered 10 schools, whether you’re a district coach, you have to make a point of getting out there and communicating and building those bridges purposefully. You can’t just wait for it to happen. They’re not going to come to you. You’ve got to get out there? And I also love the tips about organization and managing time across multiple campuses. So I hope that’s really helpful to you. If you are juggling a lot of responsibilities as a coach, remember you can grab that jump start course, that buzzing with b.com/jump start, to help you set yourself up for success by deciding what is important to you, what you’re going to focus your coaching work on, so that as you build your schedule next year, you know you’re focusing on everything that mattered. Next week, we’re going to talk to another different kind of coach we’re we’re continuing our our series about a day in the life of an instructional coach, because this job can look very different depending on the role that you have. So I can’t wait to share that with you, and until then, happy coaching.

Chrissy Beltran  33:47

Now that you’ve got so much to think about, head over to buzzing with Miss b.com to grab some free downloads, become a VIBee and check out the podcast show notes. Happy coaching!

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