In this week’s GLR Learning Tuesdays webinar, Preventing Burnout and #Resignation: Investing in Teacher Coaching and Support, we continued our series of sessions that follow up on our recent exploration of state and district spending from the $190 billion Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) federal fund. This week, our session explored the significance of teacher coaching and support to retain the quality teachers students need and prevent #resignation. Carey Wright, Ed.D., the esteemed former State Superintendent of Education for Mississippi, framed the importance of investing in teacher support as a strategy for equitable learning recovery:

“Building teacher capacity is huge, and we want to build our capacity to provide sound instruction for children, because we know that’s exactly what happens when we want student achievement to improve. I can also tell you it’s a very smart investment. That was one of Mississippi’s most successful strategies in terms of our own improvement.” 

Wright then moderated a discussion with a panel of leaders from national teacher coaching providers who shared how they partner with school districts to leverage ESSER funds and invest in creating a culture of teacher coaching and support throughout the school day. We also learned directly from a state and a district leader who shared how their investments in this strategy are working to accelerate and improve educational outcomes for students, referencing clear data demonstrating the impact and sharing how this effective strategy will be sustained for the long game of equitable learning loss recovery. Atyani Howard of The New Teacher Center emphasized how the benefits to teachers immediately and directly impact students’ learning.

“[Teachers gain] knowledge of self, [and we are] helping educators understand who they are as human beings, and how the various lenses that they bring to their work influence practice. [And this helps them build an] understanding of what students do and do not know, what they’ve mastered, what their interests are, and how to really spark and ignite the joy of learning that lives in children.”

We hope you will join us again on March 14 for the next “smart investment” session, which will pick up on this important notion of sparking joy in learning, when we will focus on out-of-school time (OST) and summer learning.