35A-Funded Early Literacy Coaches: Policy and Practice Implementation

As a provision of the Read by Grade Three law in Michigan, the state legislature appropriated funds through Section 35a of the State School Aid Code to assist Intermediate School Districts (ISDs) with employing early literacy coaches. Section 35a also provides funding to the Michigan Association of Intermediate School Administrators Early Literacy Taskforce to act as purveyor of the Statewide Early Literacy Coaching Network. This network provides initial training and ongoing resources and collaboration opportunities for early literacy coaches and the ISDs that support them. Local policy implementation choices at the ISD, district (LEA), and school level are explored in this study. The research team applied a theoretical framework using various components of the National Implementation Research Network Active Implementation Frameworks to study how ISDs and LEAs select, train, and support their coaches. This Dissertation in Practice was a group dissertation as required by the Doctorate in Educational Leadership program at Michigan State University. The research team employed a qualitative methodology with a comparative case study approach to conduct the study. We purposefully selected two ISD sites that made different implementation choices for how to utilize 35a funds. The first site uses a more centralized approach, maintaining the 35a funds at the ISD level, selecting and employing their coaches through the ISD, then deploying the coaches to districts. The second site uses a decentralized approach, utilizing the ISD as a flow-through for the 35a funds and allowing districts to select and employ the coaches at the district level. Once sites were selected, we invited participants from various levels of the organization to participate in semi-structured interviews. Participants were made up of four coaches, four building leaders, four district leaders, and two ISD leaders. Additionally, pertinent implementation documents were analyzed for each ISD site. The team used the theoretical framework to organize participants' descriptions of how coaches are selected, trained, and supported in each ISD setting, as well as explore participants' perceptions around the efficacy of these implementation choices. Themes were identified around coach selection, training, and support (feedback and implementation teams), as well as the impact of the coaching role. Participants indicated overall satisfaction with the hiring and training processes, while indicating a desire for more formalized feedback and implementation structures. Feedback and implementation structures were identified as necessary to sustain the coaching system at the local level. These findings indicate the need for additional support structures to ensure the success of early literacy coaches. Identified supports include adequate funding for qualified coach mentors, coach participation on collaborative literacy implementation teams, and providing additional training and networking opportunities for building leaders around early literacy. All levels of the system can empower the coaches to spend the bulk of their time working directly with teachers. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]