Granton Interim Administrator and Instructional and Behavioral Coach Discuss New Position

Thursday, December 10th, 2020 -- 10:11 AM

-I spoke with James Kuchta, the Interim Administrator at the Granton School District, and he, along with a special guest, talked about the exciting things happening at the District.

Mr. Kuchta:  “I’d love to introduce Miss Kim Aumann who’s been at Granton for a number of years.  I will ask her to give a little bit of an introduction.  Kim is our Instructional and Behavioral Coach for teachers and students at Granton Area School District, which is a new position this year.”

Kim:  “I’m Kim Aumann and I taught 5th grade here in Granton for 27 years.  And this is my first year in the new position as Instructional and Behavioral Coach.  And what that means is, basically, I’m working with the teachers to help them improve the quality of education for our students.  To do this, I meet with the students and the teachers.  The teachers and I sit down for one-on-one meetings or small groups and we really work on helping the teachers become more reflective in their teaching practices.”

Mr. Kuchta:  “I’d like to add that this is a new position that the School Board at Granton had the foresight to recognize Miss Aumann’s skills and abilities and interest in helping all of our teaching staff and students.”

Riley:  “I’m glad you brought that up because I was going to ask if this was brought forth by the school board or if it was something you had asked them to consider.”

Mr. Kuchta:  “I give the Granton School Board full credit for creating this new position.  It was before I was onboard in August.  Again, they recognized certain abilities and talent Miss Aumann has and, with her years of experience, her expertise is being used greatly.”

Riley:  “Kim, we’re 4 months into this school year.  Can you talk about how the program has been going so far?”

Kim:  “I think we’re off to a really fantastic start.  One of the disadvantages of being a small school district is we only have one teacher at each grade level, so there’s no one to bounce ideas off of and brainstorm across your grade level.  So, that’s where I can come in and work with the teachers.  We talk about what’s working in the classroom, things they might want to change up, new programs that they would like to start in their classroom.  So, I can help them by doing the leg work in working with them.  So, the teachers have been absolutely fantastic to work with and really seem to like having the extra help.”

Riley:  “When it comes to this assistance, do they request to speak with you or do you meet with them on a regular basis?”

Kim:  “I meet with each teacher monthly.  That’s just a scheduled meeting.  But I have teachers that are constantly popping into my office to chat.  So, we have our one scheduled meeting and then several other ones that different teachers will come to me and ask about different things.”

Mr. Kuchta:  “And I might add that one of the great advantages, I’m sure Miss Aumann would attest to as well, with a small school like Granton with one teacher per grade level is the impact that every teacher has and the positive impact towards change that they can impart on the students immediately without worrying about going through multiple channels for curriculum changes or individual student instruction in order to meet the student’s needs.”

Riley:  “Kim, do you have any specific goals that you’re trying to reach within this first year of the program?”

Kim:  “Right now one of the big goals that we’re working on is updating our writing curriculum, the continuum of learning.  So, we want to know exactly what the kids are expected to know at each grade level.  That way the teachers can look at it and know, when they get the students, where they’re at as far as their writing skills.  What non-negotiable things they need to do every single time they do their writing.  So, I started by working with the High School teachers and we’re working all the way down to 4K, so that we have a great continuum of writing.”

“Another thing that I’m working on right now with our Health Coordinator and Guidance Counselor is we’re putting together some resources for mental health.  And this will be for our staff, students and the community.  We know that this is kind of a difficult time of year and a difficult year with the COVID situation, so mental health is something that we always need to be aware of and we just want to put some resources out there.”

Riley:  “Mr. Kuchta, we spoke recently about Granton’s Strategic Plan they’re working on.  Do you think with a position like this, it will help the district reach some of their goals within that plan?”

Mr. Kuchta:  “Yes, absolutely.  Again, I’m really impressed, frankley, with the foresight the board had in creating this creative position of Academic and Behavioral Coach for the staff.  It’s really a great thing to do and, along with our strategic planning, looking for long range planning on how we continue to improve student performance.”

“I wanted to shift a little bit and discuss our school day.  Our students have been able to attend every day this year and we did adjust our school calendar so we would have some virtual learning and reinforcement days.  So, our learning platform has been students attending school every day with a virtual option.  So, we started with almost 50 students that were learning virtually.  About half of them have come back into school.  And we’ve been very fortunate to be able to have school everyday without cancelling school so far.  Again, one of the advantages of having a small school like Granton.”

“I’d like to ask Miss Aumann to talk a little now about the Goodnight Granton Program that she initiated.  We talked about it a few weeks ago and we’ve gotten started since then.”

Kim:  “So, Goodnight Granton is a brand new reading program that we started here at school.  What it is is we have a different reader read a bedtime story and we video tape it and we put the link on our Facebook page.  So, every Tuesday at 6:30pm, there’s a link to a new story that’s being read by a different reader.  I got this idea through, I was just looking on the internet for different reading ideas and how to promote reading being fun, and there’s a principal in Texas that started doing this when they went virtual in March.  I loved the idea, so I contacted the principal and now we’re making it our own here.”

Riley:  “That’s great!  I’ve told this to other administrators and teachers, but I’m very impressed with what school districts have done this year to keep kids learning, keep kids engaged by doing things like the Granton Reading Program or offering that virtual option if they’re not comfortable with being in school.  So, I give you all the credit in the world for what you’ve been doing since March of last year.”

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