As a new initiative for the 2023-2024 school year and aligned to the District’s strategic plan, the Baldwin-Whitehall School District created four new elementary instructional coaching positions. The coaching positions were created to provide an additional layer of support for the teachers and students throughout all elementary grades K–5.  Mrs. Melissa Sill (K–2) and Ms. Ellie Tecza (3–5) will be the new Instructional Coaches for ELA, while Mrs. Cait Haniotakis (K–2) and Mrs. Josephine Snyder (3–5) will be the new Instructional Coaches for math.  

Each of the instructional coaches are very excited about their new role. They have been busy attending training sessions and transferring their learning into professional development opportunities, workshops, and resources geared to assisting and supporting the teachers with everything ranging from instructional delivery to classroom collaboration. Part of the new coaching role for Mrs. Haniotakis and Mrs. Snyder is helping to continue the roll out of a new math curriculum, Big Ideas Math, which was adopted during the 2022–2023 school year. Similarly, Mrs. Sill and Ms. Tecza will be working side-by-side with the ELA teachers as they begin the year with a brand new ELA curriculum, Core Knowledge Language Arts (CKLA).  Dr. Kara Eckert shared that the four coaches have been an amazing addition to our team this year.  The coaches come with a broad scope of expertise in their field and have hit the ground running providing quality support to our teachers in the implementation of CKLA, instructional strategies, data analysis and Big Ideas math.

If you would like to see more of what the coaches are up to, please be sure to follow them on Twitter @BWSDCoaches.