Leadership Development & Coaching

Empowered literacy leaders can make a lasting impact. We’re here to help you set priorities, develop strategic plans, and build capacity for sustainable results.

Why Our Approach Works

Strong leadership is a core part of any multi-tiered system of support (MTSS) and the key to successful implementation practices in the classroom. The HILL helps get your team there by developing leadership skills, fostering collaboration, and promoting continuous improvement.

We take a distributed leadership approach involving a wide variety of stakeholders, school-wide, and meet regularly to provide targeted assistance. Together, we put the systems and routines in place to support a sustainable literacy model that everyone can buy into.

Our Needs Assessment Process

Before we lay the groundwork for a new literacy initiative, it’s extremely valuable to review and evaluate your current system and ask what’s working and what isn’t. Together through our Needs Assessment process, we understand the unique context of your school or district and develop recommendations for the instructional structures, systems, and resources that will empower your educators. We dig into data and ask a lot of questions of all stakeholders. We build on strengths and identify critical needs as we guide literacy leaders to generate a literacy plan.

Coaching and Facilitation We Offer

Three types of facilitated structures support literacy leaders across your district.

District Literacy Leadership Teams

Bridging the gap between literacy research, instructional practice, and systems implementation, the HILL supports front-line literacy leaders working in fast-moving, complex organizations.

  • Identify priorities and design a comprehensive plan for all aspects of the partnership.
  • Oversee the implementation of systems and structures, and be a vehicle for communication to and from school-level teams to inform decision-making.
  • Activities include team building, leadership exercises, building communication plans, change management, data-driven decision making, and program or assessment frameworks.

Coaches and Instructional Leaders

Receive expert guidance and a reliable sounding board to become skillful leaders among their peers. Activities include data analysis and data-driven decision making, professional learning, preparation for upcoming coaching cycles, coaching calibration exercises, and discussion of problems of practice.

Classroom Teachers

Receive coaching and support around:

  • implementing HQIM in a multi-tiered instructional model effectively and strategically.
  • using student assessment data to inform instructional decisions
  • applying professional learning to classroom practice. May include the Science of Reading (PK, K-2, 3-5, and admin), Adolescent Literacy, and Small Group Training (K-12).

NEW! IRIS Connect Video Coaching

Video coaching transforms professional development by putting teachers in control. With IRIS Connect, teachers record their own instruction, share what they’re comfortable with, and receive specific, time-stamped feedback from their coach—all without disrupting the classroom.

Having an external partnership of people who are experts to help you move forward, it just allows you to take a step back and not have it not feel so personal, like I need to fix this, but more we need to change the way we’re doing this to get better results. And here’s some things that we know have worked. Let’s try doing these things.

Kathleen Seward, M.Ed., Humanities Curriculum Coordinator, Somerville Public Schools (MA)

Courses We Offer

Our HILL Leadership Series is designed to help literacy leadership teams develop all the skills and strategies they need to cultivate leadership, establish buy-in, and align implementation across the board.

The modules integrate current research and translate it into effective practice for building an MTSS model across 5 goal areas, including:

  • Leadership
  • Assessment
  • Instruction
  • Professional learning
  • Family engagement

 

How It’s Offered 

Instructor-led

2.5-hour virtual classes that meet each month at a specific time set by your school district 

Module Topics

Choose from two tracks: PreK-5 grade educators or 6-12 grade educators

Module 1: Distributed Leadership and Literacy Planning
Module 2: Comprehensive Assessment Frameworks
Module 3: Data Meeting Process
Module 4: Assessment: Courageous Conversations
Module 5: Tiered Instruction Frameworks
Module 6: Core Programs and Instruction (Tier 1)
Module 7: Supplemental and Intensive Instruction (Advanced Tiers)
Module 8: Professional Learning: Data-Driven Coaching
Module 9: Family Engagement: Asset-Based Models
Module 10: Leadership: Literacy Vision and Roadmap for Implementation

Work With the HILL

Every HILL solution starts with a conversation so we understand your goals, needs, and budget.

Areas of Interest (check all that apply)