Most students know Mrs. Deskevich as the freshman English teacher.  What they don’t know is this is not her only job at Tyrone Area High School.

“Mrs. D,” as she’s known to many, is also one of the district Literacy Coaches.

So what is a Literacy Coach?

“Literacy and instructional coaches support teachers in all disciplines in any area they need or want. I usually focus on reading, writing, speaking and listening in the classroom,” said Deskevich.

Basically, Deskevich helps teachers to improve their teaching in the areas of reading, writing, speaking and listening.

“She’s worked with me on a number of projects.  She’s helped me to improve my teaching tremendously,” said social studies teacher Todd Cammarata. “I know the content, and she knows lots of creative strategies to help kids better understand it.  When we put those two things together,  great things can happen.”

According to Deskevich, literacy coaches are important because, “we provide in-house, ongoing professional development to our peers in an effort to create the most effective classroom instruction possible.”

The best part of her job?

“I love brainstorming with my peers. I enjoy sitting down and working on projects together,” said Deskevich.

According to health and science teacher Mrs. Teresa Myers, Deskevich “always has the best ideas on how to get my students to think more critically.”

Science teacher Ron Wilson added “she always spreads cheer!”

“I look forward to reading teachers’ monthly reflection papers because it’s a sneak peek of what’s happening in rooms all over the high school. I am honored to be invited into classrooms to see literacy strategies in progress,” says Deskevich.

Deskevich’s job is not to evaluate the teacher or rate their performance, like supervisors and principals do.  Her job is to help teachers get better at teaching and improve their lessons.

“I like listening to folks talk about what’s working and what’s not. I like being able to steal ideas from other people and use them in my English classes,” said Deskevich.

Deksevich started literacy coaching four years ago.

To prepare for this job she took graduate level literacy classes through the University of Pennsylvania and attends a coaching conference once a year.

She also attends monthly coaching workshops with other coaches from school districts across the region and meets with Mr. Yoder, the high school principal, once a week to discuss what teachers are doing to improve literacy.

“The hardest part of my job is providing mandatory professional development sessions once a month after school. Everyone is tired, yet I ask them to read, write, speak and listen after they’ve given it their all, eight periods in a row!”

So the next time a teacher has in interesting lesson or project that involves reading, writing, listening or speaking, there’s a good chance they had some help with that lesson from English teacher and Literacy Coach Leah Deskevich.