Regional Spotlight: A Look into Dr. Tyré Jenkins Work in Southern Louisiana
By Tyre’ Jenkins, EdD, Literacy & Learning Specialist, K-12
It has been an incredible privilege and experience to travel throughout the southern region of Louisiana to provide literacy support to literacy coaches, school leaders, and district leaders. I have partnered with some amazing school districts that are immensely open and receptive to all levels of literacy support.
For the past few months, the literacy coach at Ferriday Upper Elementary, Ms. Denise Credit, has been diligently working on setting a foundation to work toward her literacy goals. Ms. Credit’s focus has been to:
- Work to complete the literacy plans for the 2022-2023 academic school year.
- Analyze her school’s diagnostic data.
- Develop SMART goals with the data in mind.
- Distribute a Teacher Needs Assessment to all of her teachers.
- Conduct classroom walkthroughs to collect data for coaching support.
- Develop plans to support teachers using qualitative and quantitative data.
- Establish coaching cycles.
I have worked with Ms. Credit to build relationships with her teachers and establish coaching cycles. As an instructional leader and fellow educator, I believe healthy relationships are significant. Poor relationships can often preclude productivity. Therefore, building and maintaining healthy relationships has been a significant emphasis in my coaching sessions.
Ms. Credit began her coaching cycle three weeks ago and has already seen improvement in her teachers’ pedagogy. Ms. Credit distributed a needs assessment to give teachers an opportunity to voice the type of support that they need. From there, she conducted walkthroughs to gather more information to develop support plans and coaching cycles for her teachers. She established a coaching focus for each teacher, met with them, and began her coaching cycles. The teachers have been openly receptive to her feedback and coaching support. I watched her provide great feedback during her debriefing conversations from her last classroom walkthroughs.
Ms. Credit is off to a great start this year. Her next focus is delving more into the data to refine the school interventions and RTI process. Louisiana is on the way to making significant progress in literacy. It is a pleasure to partner with phenomenal coaches like Ms. Credit and witnesses the solid work that she is doing in her school.
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