SANDPOINT — Trust is of the highest priority for math coaches in the West Bonner and Lake Pend Oreille school districts.

For that reason, growing coaches from within the district has created a successful model for local math instructional coaches Anna Hertzberg and Peggy Loutzenhiser from WBSD, and Kathy Prummer from LPOSD. "The Coach From Within" is, in fact, the name of the presentation they will take to the National Council of Supervisor of Mathematics conference in Washington, D.C., next week.

"We wanted to share our model of how people knew us as teachers for a long time," Hertzberg said. "We have built up this relationship of being teachers within the district and helping to lead the math leadership team, and then we became coaches. So having us come into their classrooms as people they already know and trust, really helps teachers be more open to taking risks and making mistakes and not feeling judged."

Math coaching started in the area the fall of 2011 through a grant written by the University of Idaho and Washington State University. Making Mathematics Reasoning Explicit was a five-year National Science Foundation grant for rural school districts in northern Idaho and eastern Washington. Loutzenhiser and Prummer were the first coaches in their respective districts, with Hertzberg joining WBSD a year later.

The goal of MMRE, Loutzenhiser said, was to reach rural communities and train them to be leaders in math within their schools and districts. For three years, the coaches spent three weeks of the summer in training. Administrators, such as Idaho Hill Elementary School Principal Susie Luckey, were also required to spend three days in training. There is a focus on teaching math at a "very deep knowledge," Luckey said, so the first year of training was spent deepening their math knowledge. In later sessions, she said, they were trained as math coaches.

The type of coaching they do, Prummer said, is called "content focused coaching." The math coaches meet with teachers, help them plan lessons, model new constructional strategies in the classrooms, co-teach with them and meet afterward to discuss what went well, ways they could improve and what to do next. The methods are similar in both districts, though there are some differences as each has different needs, Prummer said.

Loutzenhiser and Hertzberg focus mostly on K-6 in their district, occasionally working with junior high and high school teachers. Prummer works with 25 teachers throughout the seven LPOSD elementary schools and Sandpoint Middle School. Although they work in separate districts, the coaches often collaborate, along with math coaches from Quincy, Wash., and Potlatch, who will also be presenting with the Bonner County coaches at the national conference.

Prummer said they held a four-day "mini institute" in Priest River a couple years ago. Based on their studies from MMRE, they spent two days on number sense and two days on fraction and proportional reasoning. They replicated the class the following June for LPOSD.

"It was fun because I got to interact with their teachers, and I brought those two in to interact with my teachers, and the collaboration was just good for everybody involved," Prummer said. "Our project is really built on a collaboration model from MMRE down ... It's a professional development opportunity and a professional collaboration that has really grown all of us."

The overall process has been effective throughout the districts, according to all three coaches. Having the opportunity to provide on-the-spot feedback while people are teaching is "very effective," Prummer said, helping to deepen the teachers' understanding of mathematics. In turn, the teachers pass the knowledge on to their students.

"I know that our math coaching model and math leadership team are positively impacting student learning," said Andra Murray, LPOSD director of teaching and learning, in an email to the Daily Bee. "Thanks to our coach and our teacher leaders, students are engaging in problem-solving tasks, connecting mathematics to the real world, and are excited about mathematics."

Being rural Idaho and "fighting" to keep top quality professionals in the area is challenging  Luckey said, which is why the coaching model from with within the staff is exceptional.

"I think that is something that is really important us to look for in teachers is leaders, because these people are invested in the area and they have chosen to live here," Luckey said. "... We've hired coaches from outside the district, as well as tried other coaching models, but it's very difficult to develop strong relationships and help support growth that's needed when you are just coming in and out sporadically. So it's a good investment."

In addition to the MMRE funding, the LPOSD coaching program is supported by the Idaho Community Foundation and Panhandle Alliance for Education. As for WBSD, Luckey said they are pursuing funding in hopes of continuing the program and expanding it to Priest River Junior High.

"All of the teachers, although they were unsure about the time in the classroom in the beginning, all of them are thrilled to have this opportunity and are hoping for another year," Loutzenhiser said.

The math coaching team leaves Sunday for the national conference, and Prummer said it is a "huge opportunity," not only to attend the event and learn from the "biggest of the big" names in mathematics, but also to speak alongside them. 

Mary Malone can be reached by email at mmalone@bonnercountydailybee.com and follow her on Twitter @MaryDailyBee.