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Wayzata peer coaching program reports higher staff engagement in annual QComp review
Summary
Peer coaches presented the district's annual QComp (peer coaching) review, reporting measured growth in staff perceptions of coaching and ongoing shifts toward collaborative inquiry and culturally responsive protocols; no formal action was taken at the work session.
Peer coaches and district leaders presented the Wayzata Public Schools' annual QComp peer-coaching review at a board work session Monday, reporting gains on staff survey questions and describing program aims for 2025-26.
The presentation, led by Executive Director Dana Miller and three peer coaches, described peer coaching as a districtwide effort "to cultivate a culture of continuous self-directed learning and growth among our staff," and said each of four survey question categories showed growth this year, with the largest rise (about 5 percentage points) on the item that asks whether "working with my peer coach has positively impacted" practice.
District leaders said the peer-coaching program pairs classroom teachers with coaches for two coaching cycles a year and is intended to align teacher goals with building- and district-level student-achievement targets. Peer-coaches described using the Center for Educational Leadership (CEL) tools and cognitive-coaching questions to help teachers identify a current state, an ideal state, and a concrete next actionable step.
Coaches said survey comments (presented as verbatim excerpts from staff responses) showed teachers valuing choice in coaching, increased willingness to try new practices, and the benefit of repeated exposure to ideas through multiple coaching roles (peer coaching plus literacy coaches and family partnership leads). One survey excerpt read: "I see value in pairing peer coaching, literacy coaching, and family partnership leads'hearing ideas multiple times helps to cement learning." The presenters characterized those verbatims as representative examples of broader staff feedback collected anonymously at year-end.
Presenters described concrete program shifts for 2024-25: embedding CEL routines in coaching conversations; strengthening goal setting by connecting individual SMART goals to building/district goals; piloting a shift toward collaborative inquiry questions that center adult actions ("How will my teaching choice ... impact student achievement and experience?"); and increasing deliberate collaboration between peer coaches, literacy coaches and family partnership leads.
Board members asked about how peer coaching findings are shared across classrooms and buildings. Coaches said some PLCs (professional learning communities) conduct team observation cycles together and that coaches also recommend classroom visits to teachers who want to see a practice in action. Board members asked about evidence of student impact; coaches said anecdotal teacher reports and survey responses suggest change but that the program does not yet have a single districtwide student-assessment claim attributable solely to peer coaching.
The district framed the QComp peer-coaching work as an investment in teacher practice: coaches and several board members referenced national research linking coaching and collective teacher efficacy to student achievement, while also acknowledging the district cannot claim a direct causal link between coaching and student outcomes without additional study.
No motions or votes occurred at the work session; the presentation was informational and board members asked questions about scaling collaborative inquiry, preserving teacher confidentiality during cross-site sharing, and next steps for integrating CEL and cognitive coaching across more buildings.
Board Chair Milan Sahoney closed the segment by thanking the presenters and inviting questions; the meeting then moved on to other agenda items.
