Managing the Many Hats of an Instructional Coach with Jaime Vandergrift, ep. 244

Managing the Many Hats of an Instructional Coach with Jaime Vandergrift, ep. 244, Instructional Coaching with Ms. B Podcast

Chrissy Beltran  00:00

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. Hey coach, and welcome to episode 244, of instructional coaching with Miffy. Today, we’re talking about how to manage the many hats of an instructional coach. If you’ve been coaching for any length of time, you know, managing all those different roles is one of the things that we really struggle with as coaches. So I wanted to give a whole little mini series all about time management for instructional coaching, and I feel like managing the many hat is a big part of that. So we’re going to speak with my wonderful, wonderful guest, Jamie Vandergrift, oh my goodness, listen to me today. So we’re going to speak with my wonderful guest, Jamie Vandergrift, about that topic in just a minute. Before we get started with that, I do want to tell you about a free webinar that I created. It’s about defining your role as a literacy coach. So if you’re a literacy coach, but you feel like you take on too many responsibilities, or you’re really not even sure what kind of falls under your purview, this webinar is for you, and it’s totally free. You can go to buzzing with Miss b.com/webinar and grab it right now. It’s going to help you think through the responsibilities that you have, have a dialog with your administrator, and really set yourself up for success, so that you’re saying yes to the right things, and you’re not spending all your time on things that should not even be your responsibility. So without further ado, let’s welcome Jamie van de Grif to the podcast. So welcome to the podcast, Jamie, and thank you so much for being here today.

Jaime Vandergrift  01:48

I am so glad to be here and to just talk coaching with you. You have so much background and experience. You’ve talked to so many people, so I’m just blessed to be one of those people you

Chrissy Beltran  01:57

talk to. Wow. Thank you so much. Yeah, I’m excited to have you here. We’re going to talk about a really important topic, but before we get to the topic, I want to hear about a few things so we can get to know you a little better. Who do you help and how do you spend most of your time and energy at work?

Jaime Vandergrift  02:12

So I help secondary teachers, so six through 12 and so that is a big old range. It is everything from like sixth grade math to stats and reasoning. It’s every content, all secondary teachers, primarily in the four core. So we really stay within that occasionally an elective teacher that needs support, but primarily four core, everything six through 12. And what I primarily do is work with teachers in any any element that has to do with teaching and learning. And sometimes my belief of what that is, and their belief of that is a little bit different, but I primarily am just in the the buildings, day to day saying, what help do you need to make sure that students are achieving? Okay, great,

Chrissy Beltran  03:04

and then so that is about your work. Now I want to know about your hobby. What is the hobby that you love to do? Because I’ve made it my mission this year to share hobbies with coaches who devote so much of their time to their job, but also deserve to be well people.

Jaime Vandergrift  03:18

Yes, I love to read. I actually, I think I’ve been off contract for like, two weeks, and I think I’m at book six in two weeks. It is wonderful, because during the school year, like, I’m like, Oh, I got six done and a whole school year, that’s great. But, and I have a house that I will move to in a couple of years on the top of a mountain in western North Carolina. I currently live in the suburbs of Atlanta, but if I can sit on top of that mountain looking out at the mountain with a book in my hand and just quiet, that’s that’s my happy

Chrissy Beltran  03:54

I love that. What are you reading right now?

Jaime Vandergrift  03:56

So I am reading this really strange. I so I like the romance novels. Like Catherine Cowles is one of my favorite authors. She writes really great books. But the summer, I’ve taken a different twist. I’m like, liking to read like, the things that keep you guessing. And so I’m currently reading a book that, like, she kind of time travels back to a time when you know she was with someone else, and she uncovers all the reasons of like, why that person disappeared, and she looks at it, you know, completely different lens and like, so it’s this book that keeps you guessing. And I still, like, I’m 80 some percent through, and I’m still not exactly sure what’s happened. So that’s kind of been my summer twist. I kind of shifted it up to read books that, because I think when you can read consistently, you can read a book like that, but during the school year it’s hard to, like, sit down and, like, binge read. So I’m binge reading now this summer. The stuff that makes you go,

Chrissy Beltran  04:49

that’s nice. And what is the name of that one? In case anybody’s interested? Oh

Jaime Vandergrift  04:53

gosh, you’re gonna make me any second. Oh yeah, I’m gonna pull up Kendall, and Kendall will tell me it’s still. One before the one, okay, what it’s called before the and before this, I read the Stillwater girls. And that was also really, really good. Is that when historical fiction, or what is that one? Um, no, it’s about these girls that so long, long ago this, there was these babies that were snatched in this town, and they discovered it. Well, this woman had taken them in, raised them off the grid, and then all of a sudden, like they’re 1819, and the world changes, and they get out, and they realize they’ve been lied to their whole life. And it’s, it’s a great book

Chrissy Beltran  05:31

too. Wow, crazy. Yeah, I’ve been reading a lot this summer, too. I mean, like we talked about before I started recording, I have little kids, so, you know, a lot for me is it’s not as much as it used to be before kids, for sure, but I’ve been loving that I have so much time to read. I’m rereading a book that I love right now, which is American God by Neil Gaiman, and it’s a really great book about how, over time, the gods have that have been worshiped in the past, they don’t receive the amount of worship that they do now, or have the amount of belief that they used to and so they’re, they’ve been diminished. And so now they’re just kind of like people, but they might have like heightened abilities, or, you know, certain abilities still, but not what they used to be. And so it’s, it’s really interesting, because now there are, we now have added new gods, because there are things that people spend all their time thinking about that they didn’t used to spend thinking about, like technology, things like that, that things like that that are not that around. So it’s really interesting. It’s a really great story. It’s an older book, and I it’s a great one to reread, because there’s so much going on in there that you know, like you said, it’s not a good one to read if you don’t have time to reach frequently because you lose track. Yes, yeah, sure. So today we’re talking about and thank you so much for sharing that with me, because I could talk about books all day, obviously, day, obviously, but I guess we have to talk about our topic. Today, we are talking about managing the many hats of an instructional coach. And so could you share a little bit about some of the hats that instructional coaches have to wear?

Jaime Vandergrift  06:56

So, fun story, I’ve been just I’m going into year six, and I’ve had three different types of coaching. I’ve had one building coaching. I’ve had coaching in two buildings, and now I serve 10 secondary schools, and none of that’s

Chrissy Beltran  07:14

been a promotion, by the way, isn’t even considered a promotion. You’re still on a teacher contract. Yeah, I

Jaime Vandergrift  07:21

yeah, I do have a contract that is that it’s 10 days more than teachers, but

Chrissy Beltran  07:25

the way mine was too, they just gave you like a site. But it’s not like, yeah, it’s still Yeah, no,

Jaime Vandergrift  07:30

no, not at all. Um. And so when I was in one building, I wore the most hats, and I the challenge with that was I was a part of that building and part of that staff. And so coaches who are in a building and locked in, they face a lot of challenges because the coaching is a verb is only like one teeny, tiny part of what we do. Like, it’s you don’t spend your whole day coaching, right? And so you can’t really explain that. That’s so hard for people to understand who don’t understand the role. You might have the title, but like, you might spend, like, an hour or two hours of your day actually coaching, and the rest of your day might be meetings and support, you know, just walking down the hallway, asking questions, prompting teachers, being visible. And so sometimes people see the work you have to do as a coach to build relationships and trust. They see that as free time. Yeah, and so when I was in that building, perception was if I was walking down the hallway, stopping at a door, talking to a teacher, walking to the next door, talking to a teacher that I didn’t have anything to do, right? No one could perceive and see that this was a valuable, crucial part of being able to work with these teachers. I couldn’t coach them till they trusted me, or we need relationship, right? And so then it was, Oh, hey, since you’re free, can you? And it becomes those things. So, you know, I did a lot of things with kids in the past years when my job was, you know, adults, I did a lot of things with organizing data, whether that was tier one, tier two, tier three, data, I did a lot of work with. Hey, we need this project completed, and you’re really good at this. Can you start working on this for us? Hey, we need our Title One documents this slide show. We’re getting ready to do a stakeholders meeting. Can you do this? And many of the skills coaches bring are the skills that make us good at those things, yeah. And naturally, when there’s a project, when there’s a task, when there’s, oh, we’re having people come in the building today, so I need you to greet them at the door. You know, you’ve got personality. Your coach, you work well with people, greet them at the door, take them in, make sure they’re comfortable. Those sorts of things. Are hats that that coaches begin to wear, because we bring the skill set that allows us to be a little bit of everything. And as a result, we we end up having a task list that goes well. Our job description?

Chrissy Beltran  10:01

Yeah, I totally agree with that. I became special event planner. You know, there was a special event that, you know, that was just kind of like a generic event that could have gone to anybody. It went to me, you know, because why not? I was good at planning literacy nights. I’d probably be good at planning other events. So things like that were just kind of landing your lap when you don’t have a classroom of your own, and some of those things can go a long way towards giving you opportunities to work with teachers, or then they’re fine, and then some of them really pull you away. And like you said, the amount of time that we spend coaching, like in a coaching cycle, might be very minimal, or, you know, less than maybe what you would expect, but then the amount of work that goes into getting there, and the amount of preparation that you yourself have to do, and and all the other kinds of work that does actually support and coach teacher, such as looking at data together, or, you know, hosting a planning session where you’re planning, or you’re digging into standards, or, You know, doing a book study, or all these things that we do, those are all coaching supports. They just don’t look like the traditional coaching cycle. But they are all building knowledge, they’re building skill, they’re building ability. And like you said, building relationships is a big part of that we can’t get where we want to go if we don’t do it. And so people don’t always appreciate the amount of work that goes into coaching when it doesn’t look like a coaching cycle, absolutely. So then what are as a coach, what are some of the limiting beliefs that we coaches might have about the role of an instructional coach that kind of go hand in hand with wearing many hats? Because I know I can think of one right off the top of my head, but I would I’m so curious to hear what you think. Well,

Jaime Vandergrift  11:42

I think that that we go into this in a very idealistic way. We go into it because we are a really good teachers. We love helping our peers. We get energized by looking at data and and, you know, making great things happen with planning lessons and going back and checking, did it work? What do we do? And this excites us, and then we get into this job, and we are so idealistic, and then we’re met with, Oh, you do what again. And so we, I think my first year in coaching, I had to, like, take this moment and go, oh, like they’re not where I thought they would be. And this year, when I went to another school and we a platform we’ve used for years, probably four or five years we’ve had this platform, I was doing a PL, and I started the PL and the administrator went, can you take that back a little? And I went, Oh, okay, so I think that we we want to go full force, but then we have to limit ourselves a little bit. We have to pull ourselves back because we want to shoot for the moon. Yeah, we want, we can see what can happen. But the people we’re working with, we have to meet them where they are. And so it when you bring yourself back to a place. And this year, I was in 10 buildings, I had to walk in and go, where am I today? Yeah, what is happening in this building today? What is the expectation I did, like, bring myself back as I walked in the building to where is this building? And what movement can we have forward versus a very idealistic How do I how do I shoot for the moon? Philosophy that I think coaches get, and it’s I think many coaches get discouraged and want out when they have to put limits on on what they’re doing, but I firmly believe that coaching is a 180 day journey, like I started working with a team last year, and this was a team that just needed structure. They needed to sit down and look in a dang assessment before they gave the assessment right. They needed some things. And day one and day two and day three, I, little by little, inserted things and moved things. And by the end of the year, that team grew 16% of the US History team, and they were, I mean, the joy and the happiness, and all I could think was, like, if I had gone into that year, like, Okay, guys, let’s go. Let’s go. Let’s go. We would never have been there. My patience, me pulling back and limiting my my get up and go, allow those teachers to settle in, get build some trust in me and allowed us to move the needle.

Chrissy Beltran  14:37

Yeah, that’s a really good point, I think, whenever we feel like PD or PLC have to look a certain way, PLC meetings have to look a certain way to make them purposeful or valuable. Whenever we think that everybody is going to learn like we do, that’s a real problem, because then we go into the school and it doesn’t, doesn’t actually pan out that way. Everybody’s different. Everybody’s in a different place, and everybody is. Taken what they’ve learned and applied it differently. And, you know, I can remember whenever I started out as a coach, I was surprised because that we I started coaching in the same district that I taught at, and we had all been to the same district level stuff, and I didn’t see it happening at the school I started coaching at. And I was like, What is going on here? And so it’s, it is difficult to imagine. It’s kind of like when you start teaching and you think that kids are going think that kids are going to be the way you were as a kid, and they are not. I struggled with that as a new teacher. I was like, Whoa, rude awakening. They weren’t like my brothers were much younger than me. They weren’t like my brothers either. That’s how it was, like, very different, and I really had to make some big adjustments in terms of how I approach my work. So I love that one. That’s a great one. I was thinking about how sometimes coaches feel, but you have the whole team player idea that being a team player means you have to say yes to everything, and it kind of makes you kind of feel that way, right? Like I mean, how many times working in education are we told no, it’s not required, but it’s highly recommended, which means you better do it right. And we’re used to this. And so then we get used to saying yes to all the things, everything. It’s like, Well, I’m a team player, and I know I don’t have a class, so I guess I have to say yes to this. And so then we get stuck with random tasks, like you mentioned, entering whatever data that’s required, or, you know, recording something for some entity that needs it for who knows what reason. And sometimes, like, could that not have been passed on to a staff member that is not supposed to, like, improve the whole school, you know, right? I one thing I one thing I learned from my principal, and I love the way she she worded it with that you find the lowest level person who can do the task, and they get that task. And so instead of immediately farming it out to your assistant principal, you go, does your assistant principal really need to do this? Or can the attendance clerk do it? You know, now the problem is, there’s too many things to be done in a school for the staffing that we have. Yes, that’s just why coaches end up saying yes to so many things, because you kind of don’t have a choice. Somebody has to do it, and there might not be anybody else to do it, but it does get in the way of us doing our jobs. And so that’s what I was kind of thinking about, is, is how often I’ve had to say yes to things despite those being a hat that I should not be wearing, right? You know?

Jaime Vandergrift  17:25

Yeah, and it’s, I think it’s hard, because you don’t, you know your relationships aren’t just with teachers. You have to have relationships with administrators. And if an administrator comes to you and ask something, yes, saying no, could be an L in the coffin, right? So it’s really this very double edged sword. You want to build a relationship where they understand your role, but in the same token, you want to make sure that they they trust that when you ask something you can deliver. Yeah, that’s right. It is tricky at the fine line for sure, you want to not be the person who says no to all the fame. Then they know you are not a team player, you know, but really the phrase. Whenever I heard the phrase all hands on deck, I was like, oh gosh, I ate the phrase.

Chrissy Beltran  18:10

They’re calling my plans gone. So what are some hats that you have worn that you later realized should not have been your job? You were like, why did why am I doing this job? This is not my job.

Jaime Vandergrift  18:25

So discipline phone calls, middle school, there’s a little bit of discipline. So discipline phone calls were, for sure, one of those things where I was like, Hey, we’ve got one day. There was, there was just things. There was so many things that happened that there were, we ran out of administrators to handle some things. Yeah, I have my leadership certification, and that’s the other double edged sword. They were like, hey, Tag, you’re it. Here you go. Oh, by the way, our administrators out of the building this afternoon. You’re the backup administrator. Those things, the administrator tasks, to me, were the ones where they were just such a fine line, because you did not want you knew that if they were asking, they were, they were needed you, right? They needed additional support. But you also knew that once you stepped into that administrator hat, teachers saw you differently, yes, and it was so hard to me, that was the one that I just was like, like, I know they need the help, and I know I’m just stuck, but I also know that teachers are going to start to see you as an administrator if you continue to do these things. And one thing coaches cannot be is seen as an

Chrissy Beltran  19:41

administrator. Yeah, yeah, that is a very difficult line to walk, for sure. Whenever you’ve been asked to support in those areas, it’s kind of like whenever you are the school counselor and they make you responsible for discipline, and then the kids look at you and they go, why am I going to tell you my problem? You sent so and so to ISS correct? So it. And so then, whenever we muddy these roles, it makes it hard for the people who you’re there to support to actually feel safe with you. Correct. Yeah. So we talked, we hinted at this a little bit a minute before I totally forgot that this question was in here. But, but how do we really navigate that line of being a team player, which is important, obviously, to a certain degree, with valuing the time that we spend on coaching cap. How can we kind of make that work and balance those things out and kind of make it clear to administration what’s going

Jaime Vandergrift  20:28

on? So I think it has a lot to do with how much power and control you have in your position, because I’ve had three different structures, and when I was in that one school, I did not have the power to tell them that I wasn’t going to I said to that administrator, that administrator decided what to do with me, and at the end of the day, I can say, hey, I need to be in this classroom. But if that administrator decided otherwise, I was stuck my last year, I reported to the director of secondary education, and she was like, Okay, well, like, I really don’t want you doing those things, but if you have to do those things. So she gave me more autonomy to say, hey, I really want to step in here. However, is there someone who could do this while I go meet with this team? It also gave me, because I had a leader that did that at the time, it also gave me the power to say, hey, on my schedule today. I have this, this, this, I have 30 minutes at this time, but I’d have to be with these teachers because I had someone. And now my boss is the assistant superintendent, and she has laid the line. She said there are four places that you can utilize my people. She’s changed her titles to teaching and learning specialists for the fall. She said, You can use these people in pls PLC, in classroom observations or in coaching cycles. You will sign an agreement with those people and you will do one of those four things. And having seen all three of these stages, it’s gone from like I was at the mercy of what an administrator said to I had someone who said, You know what? I want you to put this as a priority, to know you are in a building to do a job, and they need to see that you are in this job. My leader now I’m like, wow, this is great, because you now I can say, is it one of these four things? Is it on the task list of things that people have said Now that being said, there’s some wiggle room even within those four buckets. Last year, for instance, we can do teacher observations, which means in secondary, I can walk into a classroom and observe, right? And so one day, an administrator in high school said, Hey, so my automotive teacher, hubs, like, automotive, okay, so, but again, that’s one of those places, where was that four core No, was that exactly what I had been tasked to do? No, but I had this administrator who was like, I just need you to check in on my administrator, on my, you know, auto teachers. And I found out that that automotive room was really fun. I can imagine. They were like, hey, my drama teacher. And so I went to the drama room. And so I there’s, there’s times where you can wiggle that falls within your job, and that’s where I think you have to, you can’t have these firm, firm lines. Last year we were set, we were stated, you know, told four core, four core, you’re staying with four core. But then we had some teachers who a brand new orchestra teacher. That was a baby, brand new orchestra baby, and that’s, that’s someone who needs tons of support. So then we had to, we had to say, yes, there’s some lines, but yeah, there’s a teacher who may not teach math or science or social studies or English, who really just needs someone, an art teacher that has moved last year, moved from elementary to high school, and bless her heart, her eyes were huge, and I was like, Okay, I’m just gonna come check on you. Okay, it’s the human part of the job where you have to go into a building and say, How do I take care of the needs of these people? And it may not be exactly the coaching aspect, but for an art teacher, who’s, for the first time ever, looked at high school kids. I, you know, I used to do elementary now I’m dealing with, you know, seniors, that person just needs, just needs a person. They need someone. And so I remember telling her, I said, Hey, so here’s something I want you to focus on the positive. I don’t care what you have to do. I just want you to find something good that’s happening and comment on that and do it as much as you can. And so I went back next day, and she was like, that was magic. Do you know that works? Yeah, yeah. No, that works. That’s why I told you, in our agreement, it wasn’t what I was but to be a team player. In that school, like I needed to meet the needs of that school where it came to teachers, and that, to me is sometimes there’s there’s the lines, and then sometimes there’s a human aspect that says, I I’m going to veer over here for these people, for the best interest of these people. But the real picture is, I’m not only helping that teacher, I’m helping a whole lot of kids be able to survive art for that year. And so sometimes you have to step back and go, What is, what’s the big picture here, right? Is what I’m going to do, going to impact students. And if it is, then it might not be the thing on paper, but it’s the thing to do? Yeah,

Chrissy Beltran  25:41

I agree with that. I think that that like in your role of teaching and learning, it makes total sense that you would support a classroom regardless of what is being taught, even if your main focus is usually those four core subjects. Yes, you know, I think that having your schedule as full as possible written down, it’s a really good thing that you mentioned, if you can say, well, I have this, this and this, and so I do not have any availability today. You know, this is the only available time that I have, even if you schedule in, like, when you’re going to prepare for things, okay, on your own calendar. So you say, Okay, well, I have this professional development that I’m giving tomorrow, so I need to spend a couple of hours today, you know, assembling my materials or whatever is left to do. You put that on your calendar so it’s visible. Because if not all of that time gets used up, it’s very easy to squander it on other things, because it’s it doesn’t look like it’s a thing. It looks like an empty face, yep. So, you know, really plug that time in, I think, really staying focused on your goals. As well. As a coach and I have them written every calendar month, I write them at the beginning of each week. So like, what are my big three things that I’m focusing on that month? And then on each week, I say, okay, so then from for this week, what are my big three things that I want to accomplish, that I am trying to get done here? And so having those at the top of the calendar week and then being able to fill in any empty spaces with those things has been very helpful, because then you can say, well, this is what I’ve got going on, and this is what I’m working towards. Working towards. It’s very specific. And it’s it like, oh, well, that is right. That is true. That is one of the things we’re trying to do, you know. So I don’t want you to pull you from that. If we can make it really clear, if I say yes to this, if I do that, I will not be able to do this. It’s a trade off. It is, I think administrators sometimes forget, I mean, they might know, but they don’t know what the trade off is. Yeah, they don’t know what you’re saying no to now because you said yes to a different thing. So if we can specifically be like a yes to that, as a no to this and and that way they can have a better idea of what they are trading off, what they are trading off, they’re they’re asking you to do this job, right? So then what is it that they are losing when they say, when you say yes to the thing they told you to do, you know, yeah. How can you you’ve mentioned that, you know, not having, like, really hard lines, but having, you know, using some logic and reasonableness, you know, and human human interest in order to decide what’s important. But how can we put some boundaries around the most important roles that we have so that we can hopefully protect that time.

Jaime Vandergrift  28:06

So I think that it’s having a clear structure of what is it that I that needs to be done? And so because now I have those four boxes, I can say if I’m walking into a building and that administrator wants me in those PLCs. I’m going to be in those PLCs, and then I’m going to then say, What’s the best bang for my buck coming out of that? And I’m going to build around it how we’re going to have the impact. Because often we think if, if an administrator has asked us to be a part of a PLC, not facilitate, but be a part of a PLC, but the role is only going to be as good as what you do with the action step from the PLC. So if I just sit in that PLC, and I never ever go to the classroom to see if the PLC actions are happening, then I’m not actually accomplishing anything. So last year, we actually set our goals around being able to go into PLCs have actionable steps come out of it, and then going into classrooms to determine, did we see those actionable steps happening? Coming back to the PLC evaluating, did those actionable steps happen? Did it work? Did it not work? And what do we do about it? And like our goals were, we needed to find PLCs that we could keep this cycle going. We call it plan, do, check, act, and that, that is one of the things that last year got me excited. I only had about two teams in all of the whole, you know, structure my whole year that I really could get this going with. And the one was the very successful team. I had another one that we had ebbs and flows of success. But there was, there were other challenges with that team. There were personal challenges within. That team. And to me when, when those things are built and and put into place, and those lines and those you know, parentheses are there, you can start to see coaching really happen and really be impactful. It does have to have action to it. Though I have new people coming aboard. I’m gonna have a whole new team in the fall, brand new people. And I keep thinking in my head, what am I telling them about? What needs to be done in order to be impactful? Because they’re not going to know all the things that I have six years in my head of. So how do I get this team ready to go in? Draw some lines around what’s the important stuff? Have some wiggle room around how we support teachers, but to make sure there’s something impactful coming through our actions. And how do I make sure? And I then, since that next year, with a new team of people that like we are being accountable to each other, to go in, do the work, come back and reflect on the work, give each other feedback, role play, do whatever we need to do in order to make sure that our team is is successful.

Chrissy Beltran  31:13

Yeah, I like that. I really like that you focus on. I mean, having those four boxes to put things in, I think it’s so good because it’s an agreement that you have with the administrator, and they know what the role is. And so I think really narrowing down at the beginning of the year, hammering out the role clearly, and narrowing it down to a few categories of things, and saying this is where we want the majority of our time to be spent. I mean, the reality is, like you said, if you’re a candidate, campus coach, you’re not going to be able to say these are the only four things I’m going to do. It’s just there’s too many all hands on deck situations. But if you can say, I’m going to try to focus on these five tasks, these five types of category, you know, the category test, and really have the admin on board with that, then you could even color code your calendar. You know, you can, can I there’s an episode I recorded with a guest a couple years ago where she talked about how she used, I think, Google Calendar and Google Sheets, and I don’t remember what else. To really quantify the amount of time she spent doing different tasks. She did such a good job with it. And there are other services you could use for this, too. For this too, but she made up a free one, you know, yes. And so it was so neat, because she then was able to actually export everything into a pie chart or into a bar graph, and she could really see where her time was going. So if you could really narrow down the categories and say, This is what I want to spend most of my time doing, and then look after the month and see where did my time really go? Oh, I spent a week in assemblies in the month of December, a whole, you know, because we only have three weeks of school, so a third of my month was spent in assemblies. You know, if you can do that, then you can better say, Hey, we’re trying to focus on these four things. How can I improve the amount of time I’m spending in these areas, and you can have that ongoing conversation with your admin, but without having that to start, it’s very difficult to make it up. And you go,

Jaime Vandergrift  33:09

I agree. And Google Calendar is wonderful because you can go in and you can assign colors, yeah, because I was in so many schools, I colored mine by schools so that I can see there’s four that I have to be in every week, and so I needed to make sure that I was there every week. But at the end, you can do Google Calendar lets you look and see like, where you spent your time that week, how much time was in meetings, how much time did I spend at each school? And so I could keep track of like, did I spend enough time at that school? I didn’t. Why didn’t I? And it you’re absolutely right. The more documentation you can do, the more you can say, here’s what I need from you as a leader. Last year, I had one school that I had struggles getting in there, like they weren’t real receptive to the coaching. And so I was like, you know, an hour a week. And so I had to say, hey, for me to be productive here and spend more than an hour a week in your building, here’s what I’m going to need, and that’s you’re absolutely right. You have the data, you can have the conversations.

Chrissy Beltran  34:16

Yes, yes, I love that. What a good way to to enter episode. Such a good line. You have the data, you can have the conversation, that’s perfect. So how can coaches keep learning from you if they want to follow

Jaime Vandergrift  34:26

up? So just, you know, I have, I’ll be honest. I’m i. I for years, for years, I was such a very active like on Instagram, on, you know, having everything on, but in 2023 I was diagnosed with triple negative breast cancer, and in 2024 I was told I had to have open heart surgery. And let me tell you, two years of non stop health will put a real like, slam on on on your life. Life. I’m almost two years cancer free and have a pacemaker, so my heart works right now. So I’m, you know, I’m trying. It’s been definitely hard. When I left heart surgery, we went back to work last year, and my job completely changed. I’d gone from two schools to 10. So like, life, it’s been, it’s been like, right? But on Instagram, I’m at coaching with JV, and I’m not going to change that, even though my title has changed and it’s the same. On Facebook, I primarily hang there. I mean, I have x at Jamie vandergie on x, but I have really not, I dabble in that on occasion, but that’s really not my place. So Instagram primarily, and it, it feeds to Facebook, but I’m definitely slacking at keeping things going here. I’ve tried to just, you know, I realized I do better in the summer, but it’s, it’s hard when life hits and you realize, Hey, I gotta, gotta take care of me instead of take care of the

Chrissy Beltran  36:01

career, yeah, oh, you have to have priority. You have to be realistic about what you can spend your time on. So yes, but thank you so much for sharing everything with us today. This was great information, and I really appreciate you

36:11

being here. Well, I am so glad. Thank you so much for having me.

Chrissy Beltran  36:18

I love that honest conversation with Jamie, because it was very real, very true. I think we’ve all felt the way that she has, where you’re like, Wow, I’m having to do a lot of things that are kind of getting in the way of my job and managing all these hats and instructional coaches. Where something we have to get more comfortable with, we have to kind of decide, where do we draw the line? Where do we say, Yes, I will do that. No, that’s not what I’m about. But next week, I have an episode, another time saving episode, but this one is a little bit different. I am going to chat with principal mo about how AI can save you time at the school leader. Now, personally, I am honestly torn with AI. I do not love the environmental consequences that we have seen more and more information come out about over time. I recorded this one a while back and and I feel like we’ve just gotten even more information about this as time has gone on. I also know there’s a ton of research about it that showed the decline in brain activity for people who use it without doing thought beforehand. It can really limit the way that our brains function, and that’s kind of scary, but I know that as a school leader, you are desperate for support, and there are so many tools that can help you do your job in the time that you actually have, because we have too many tasks to do not enough time. So next week, you can join me to see if there are options that you might actually employ that could save you time as a school leader, and that will actually, you know, do the same kind of work that you were gonna do quicker. Because how many times have you had to put together a last minute slideshow on something and you just need some bullet points, or how many times have you had to scroll through something and you need something to kind of pull out an item analysis for you? So many tasks that have to be done that AI can help you do in just a quicker amount of time. So check that out. That’s going to be episode 245, and until next week. Happy coaching.

Chrissy Beltran  38:16

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