Caring coaching: Centering teachers in practice

Coaches can help create a caring workplace by listening and attending to teachers’ specific needs.

At a Glance

• Instructional coaches are in a position to promote teacher well-being in difficult times.
• A study of instructional coaches during the COVID-19 pandemic shows how coaches can center care for teachers.
• Coaches responded to teachers’ needs through coaching activities, conversation, adjusting priorities, engaging with families, and increasing their availability to teachers.
• Coaches seeking to center care can put on a caring lens, listen to teachers’ needs, and determine how to act to meet those needs.

Perhaps more than ever, the teaching profession is embedded within layers of cultural, social, and political demands. The sum of these demands has left many teachers dealing with rapid changes (Hargreaves, 2001), depression (Katz, Mahfouz, & Romas, 2020), demoralization (Santoro, 2021), and emotional exhaustion (Kush et al., 2021).

Given these increasing stressors, many researchers and educational leaders have turned their attention toward topics like teacher emotional well-being and burnout prevention. However, much of this work focuses on individual rather than institutional levers. And, while individual moves like mindfulness practices have value for teachers and students (Jennings et al., 2017), we believe it’s also essential to ensure teachers have a healthier, more humanizing workplace.

Creating this kind of workplace requires intentional, consistent, and multifaceted efforts by building leaders, especially those whose relationships with teachers are predicated on trust, vulnerability, and positive change (Munson & Saclarides, 2023). Instructional coaches — who we define as individuals who are released, either part- or full-time, from teaching to provide professional development for colleagues — can make a big difference for teachers and students (Harbour & Saclarides, 2020). Their unique position in the school enables them to reenvision their roles so that care for teachers is the core mission of their practice, rather than a by-product.

Coaching centered on care

While we are certain every good instructional coach approaches their work with the intention to care for their teachers’ holistic needs, we are also aware of the myriad pressures coaches face. As boundary spanners, they wear many different hats and may be asked to pursue competing priorities. To explore this tension — and the transformative potential of care in coaching — we studied the efforts of seven instructional coaches (Saclarides et al., 2025; Saclarides et al., 2026) from 2021 to 2022, when schools were still grappling with the immediate impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. The unique and intense circumstances of these years caused the coaches to hone their focus on the holistic needs of their teachers and elements of care.

This deliberate redirection of intention, attention, and action is what we call caring coaching — a responsive, iterative cultivation of coaching practice driven by teachers’ holistic needs. While caring coaching is not a static process, coaches who would like to begin practicing caring coaching can start with a three-part framework:

• Maintain a caring stance in observations and interactions.
• Listen carefully and actively for teachers to communicate their needs.
• Turn attention toward action.

This framework, supported by certain actionable coaching practices, can support coaches in reimagining schools as places where teacher well-being is a defining and transformative reality.

Our coaching study

Oswego School District, which is a pseudonym, is in an urban region of the southwestern U.S. This Title I district comprises one middle school and five elementary schools and enrolls about 2,600 total students. Our study (Saclarides et al., 2025; Saclarides et al., 2026) took place in the elementary schools.

Each Oswego elementary school employed two instructional coaches who were released full-time from teaching responsibilities and provided professional development to teachers across all academic disciplines and grade levels (Baker et al., 2021). Ultimately, seven Oswego instructional coaches consented to participate in our study. Most of these coaches were somewhat experienced classroom teachers (five to eight years of teaching experience) and had between one and 10 years of coaching experience. We chose to learn from Oswego because they had a well-established coaching program and had been publicly commended for their response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

For our study, we interviewed each instructional coach in summer 2021 and summer 2022. Initially, we had wanted to understand how the form and focus of coaching had shifted amid the COVID-19 pandemic. However, what we were most struck by were coaches’ detailed accounts of how they turned their attention toward teachers’ most pressing needs and sought to care for and support their teachers during such unprecedented and turbulent times.

Conceptualizing care

Nel Noddings (2012), the notable expert on caring in relationships, views care as not merely following a checklist of caring behaviors (e.g., sending a nice morning message to your staff, bringing donuts to professional development activities). Rather, a caring relationship involves the needs, motivation, and actions of two people: the “carer” and the “cared-for.”

For example, if a teacher is expressing a significant need for assistance at the end of the school day with a student who refuses to get on the school bus, that teacher would not interpret a reminder that Fridays are casual days as caring. In short, care involves a) an expressed need, and b) turning one’s attention toward this need with action.

As carers, the coaches in our study exhibited five types of care directed toward teachers (the cared for). These categories represent caring practices that coaches — and more broadly, school leaders — ought to employ across a variety of circumstances.

Coaching activities

One thing COVID-19 may have shown school districts is how valuable their in-house expertise is. School leaders cannot solve every problem, but in our study, coaches mentioned meeting frequently with teachers and providing directed support through coaching activities both one-on-one (e.g., modeling, co-teaching) and in groups (e.g., grade-level team meetings, whole-staff professional development).

More than one coach described providing feedback, “Since our lessons were video-recorded, I would watch those, and I would give teachers feedback on that.” Coaches also observed, co-planned, co-taught, and engaged in the coaching cycle. One coach mentioned modeling instruction for two long-term substitute teachers who needed support.

Discursive moves

Our coaches described two types of discursive moves (i.e., conversational strategies) to support their teachers. These two types of discursive moves did not require much time or money, and they could be enacted immediately.

We found coaches willing to be flexible about schedules to ensure teachers had the necessary supports.

The first one involved regular brainstorming with teachers to address their needs, at times questioning them or engaging in think-alouds. For example, one coach worked with non-grade-level teachers (e.g., “specials” teachers such as art or physical education instructors) by brainstorming ways to make their content engaging for students despite COVID-19 limitations.

The second type of discursive move was cheerleading — expressing their support for teachers and developing their confidence at a difficult time. Coaches felt strongly that they needed to show teachers how much their efforts were appreciated. One coach talked specifically about “celebrating the little things” teachers were doing by sending weekly emails containing “photos from people’s virtual classrooms and other ideas that teachers had, just to kind of pump them up.”

Modifying schedules and priorities

We found coaches willing to be flexible about schedules to ensure teachers had the necessary supports. Modeling this type of flexibility when it came to professional development or other meetings let teachers know that coaches were willing to set aside their plans to ensure teachers had what they needed.

This might have included not engaging teachers in professional development or shifting the professional development (e.g., paring it down, changing its focus) to meet teachers’ needs. Other times, coaches adapted the master schedule (e.g., establishing a new intervention block of time) or helped teachers gather assessment data so they could make efficient and effective decisions. Coaches were very aware of how tired teachers were, and they changed plans accordingly. One coach commented that because everyone was just so sick of being at their computer screen all day” providing flexibility for teachers “to do things at their own pace was super important.”

Engaging with students and families

Coaches were directly engaged with students and families to a greater degree than they had been before COVID-19. While instructional coaches tend to work directly with teachers, not necessarily students, coaches in Oswego shifted their attention to students and families during this time as a way of letting both the students and teachers know they were there for them.

For example, absenteeism was rampant, and coaches helped teachers track down students who had been missing from virtual or in-person school for too long. One coach mentioned answering parent questions in the school’s communication platform, while another mentioned going to a student’s house to see if they were living there or had moved during the pandemic. Occasionally, coaches supervised an unruly student outside the classroom until the student was ready to return. Coaches, at times, shielded teachers from angry parents or met with students individually.

Enhanced availability and presence

Finally, coaches worked to maintain a presence in teachers’ virtual and in-person classrooms. This way, they could provide immediate assistance if teachers needed it. One coach stated, “Let me come see a read aloud, not to give feedback, but to be a presence.” This is possible even in schools without a coaching program. For example, administrators or fellow teachers can set a goal to “pop in” to classrooms when they are available. A teacher who is struggling in multiple ways may need more visits than others.

Coaches are constantly adapting to what each teacher needs, based on institutional or field mandates, environmental or cultural shifts, the unique needs of specific teacher teams, and the numerous and dynamic stages of growth in any individual teacher’s career

Oswego coaches also sent the message that they were ready and willing to help by attending meetings with teachers when they might not have done so in the past. One coach described attending all individualized education program (IEP) meetings with her assigned teachers. Another coach described giving teachers her cell phone number so they could reach her before school, and one teacher in our study specifically mentioned how helpful she found this availability.

Enacting caring coaching

Coaches working to center care for teachers as the focus of their coaching practices may use our three-element framework with reflective questions to begin making the shift.

Element 1: Donning a caring lens

A caring coach continually uses a caring lens in all aspects of their coaching practice. This lens is attuned to the holistic needs of teachers, enabling coaches to be aware of their teachers’ unique experiences, goals, and needs. As we observed among the Oswego staff, teachers’ expressions of need can range from explicit to subtle, thus requiring coaches to maintain an attentive, kind, and patient coaching presence. Coaches can think of this as an ongoing cultivation of a caring presence and a readiness to engage whenever and however a teacher expresses a need.

To maintain a focus on caring, coaches may reflect using the following questions:

• What would it look like for me to turn my attention toward teachers’ holistic needs?
• How can I maintain a caring presence that is authentically aligned with my own strengths, my relationships with the teachers in our building, and our school context?

Element 2: Listening and interpreting

Caring coaching requires thoughtfully listening to and interpreting teachers’ expressions of need. Oswego’s teachers communicated needs related to content and curriculum, their emotional well-being, pedagogy, school policies, the teaching profession, and student behavior and engagement. These categories of need involved specific situations and nuances that required coaches to listen attentively, question thoughtfully, and understand deeply.

Once a teacher has expressed a need, a caring coach may need to simply hold space without rushing or directing. They may act as a partner who uses discernment and structural know-how to set intentions, leverage resources, or take action.

When listening to and interpreting teacher needs, coaches may ask themselves the following questions:

• What type of need(s) is this teacher communicating? How does this relate to other things I know about them and their personal or professional context?
• What questions can I ask to better understand the situation? What am I overlooking?
• How can I best leverage my skills, leadership capacity, or position in a care-directed manner? What is within my domain or locus of control?

Element 3: Determining caring action

After noticing, listening, and interpreting teachers’ expressions of need, caring coaches can get to work. Table 1 lists questions coaches can ask themselves to determine how to authentically respond to their teachers’ needs in a caring way using the categories of care that we identified in our study. We hope that the reflective questions will support coaches in establishing a lens so that they notice and are ready to engage when a teacher presents (explicitly or not) a specific need.

Category of care	Reflective questions
Coaching activities	• Would this teacher most benefit from a one-on-one or group coaching activity, and why? • What coaching activities can I leverage to most effectively address this teacher’s need? • Do I have protected time built into the school schedule so that I can leverage coaching activities to support teachers?
Deploying discursive moves	• What forms of communication will be most supportive? • When brainstorming with teachers, how can I build upon teachers’ ideas? How can I affirm teachers’ strengths? • How can I be more intentional in offering praise and encouragement to teachers? What feels authentic, responsive, and productive?
Modifying schedules and priorities	• When and how might I adjust my plans to accommodate teachers’ needs? Do I have the capacity to adjust schedules or agendas to center care and holistic attention? • How do I balance long-term goals with short-term responsiveness when teachers’ priorities and contexts might shift? • How do I maintain focus on schoolwide priorities while responding to teachers’ needs?
Engaging with students and families	• How might my engagement with students and families help me further develop this teacher’s instructional capabilities? • How might my engagement with students and families help me support teachers’ emotional well-being? • What are the ways I can engage with students and families in service of teachers and the overall school mission?
Enhanced availability and presence	• Are there patterns in when or how I make myself available to teachers? • How do I demonstrate consistency and availability to teachers through my presence at my school? • How can I use existing school structures to amplify my presence to teachers?

Responding with care

Coaches are constantly adapting to what each teacher needs, based on institutional or field mandates, environmental or cultural shifts, the unique needs of specific teacher teams, and the numerous and dynamic stages of growth in any individual teacher’s career. Thus, coaches’ decisions about which types of care to enact will continually shift as they seek to respond to teachers’ ever-changing needs and contexts.

The concept of caring coaching is not intended to pathologize teachers’ experiences or seek out problems. Instead, caring coaching entails cultivating a coaching presence that communicates accessibility, compassion, and holistic concern that will naturally encourage the development of a culture of care and a sense of trust in coaches. With a caring coaching approach, we believe schools will be better situated to affirm and sustain teachers in meaningful, concrete ways.

 

References

Baker, C., Saclarides, E. S., Harbour, K. E., Hjalmarson, M., & Livers, S. (2021). Trends in mathematics specialist literature: Analyzing research spanning four decades. School Science and Mathematics, 122 (1), 24-35.

Harbour, K. E., & Saclarides, E. S. (2020). Math coaches, specialists, and student achievement: Learning from the data. Phi Delta Kappan, 102 (3), 42-45.

Hargreaves, A. (2001). Changing teachers, changing times. Bloomsbury.

Jennings, P.A., Brown, J.L., Frank, J.L., Doyle, S., Oh, Y., Davis, R., Rasheed, D., DeWeese, A., DeMauro, A.A., Cham, H., & Greenberg, M.T. (2017). Impacts of the CARE for Teachers program on teachers’ social and emotional competence and classroom interactions. Journal of Educational Psychology, 109 (7), 1010-1028. 

Katz, D., Mahfouz, J., and Romas, S. (2020). Creating a foundation of well-being for teachers and students starts with SEL curriculum in teacher education programs. Northwest Journal of Teacher Education, 15 (2).

Kush, J.M., Badillo-Goicoechea, E., Musci, R.J., & Stuart, E.A. (2021). Teacher mental health during the COVID-19 pandemic: Informing policies to support teacher well-being and effective teaching practices. Educational Researcher, 51 (9), 593-597.

Munson, J., & Saclarides, E. S. (2023). How coaches get in. Phi Delta Kappan, 105 (2), 32-36.

Noddings, N. (2012). The caring relation in teaching. Oxford Review of Education, 38, 771-781.

Saclarides, E.S., Jones, A.L., & Kessler, M.A. (2025). Who takes care of the superheroes? Exploring how coaches and principals cared for teachers during the COVID-19 pandemic. The Elementary School Journal, 125 (4), 644-674.

Saclarides, E.S., Kessler, M., & Jones, A. (2026). Exploring how principals and coaches enacted care to respond to teachers’ needs during the COVID-19 pandemic. Journal of School Leadership, 0 (0).

Santoro, D.A. (2021). Demoralized: Why teachers leave the profession they love and how they can stay. Harvard Education Press.

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This article appears in the Summer 2026 issue of Kappan, Vol. 107, No. 7-8.