Leadership Coaching and Advisory Services
Our Philosophy on Coaching
High-quality coaching is an effective way to support organizational success and improve leadership skills and performance. Agencies providing this high level of investment for their employees will realize a higher level of productivity, decreased turnover and increased employee satisfaction.
Coaching is different from mentoring. Mentors are very helpful in sharing stories, experiences, and ideas on how to navigate a system. Coaching is more formal, providing school leaders with a structured way to set goals, reflect on practice, and most importantly, the opportunity to learn in an unbiased confidential environment. Working with a well-trained and experienced coach is the highest level of professional development.
Coaching and Leadership Development
K-12 School Leadership Coaching
Providing individualized, one-on-one confidential sessions focussed on growth and development.
K-12 New and Aspiring leaders
Strengthening foundational practices to enable new leaders to become successful in their roles for pre-administrative service and entry-level positions.
Corporate Executive Coaching
Embracing the ultimate personal and professional development practice. Through the coaching process, leaders grow, develop and excel in a wide range of skills and dispositions.
Leadership Team Development
Shaping a work culture that leverages productive working relationships with an emphasis on reaching organization goals. Job embedded and off-site options to reinforce individual and group responsibilities, clarity in the organization’s mission, and a renewed sense of purpose and energy.
Business Advisory Services
Executives and Leaders sometimes just need to bounce ideas with someone that can further define and challenge their thinking. TRiGroup has high caliber and experienced people to do just that and “raise the bar” for executive decision making.
Job search and preparation
Looking at the horizon from something new? Let us take you through the re-employment process from search to contract!
Communication tool development
Speak with great clarity about your company mission in 1:1 meetings to large group presentations. Thread your organizational message through every possible client/constituent meeting format.
Problem of practice
There are times when leadership teams “hit the wall” or are “stuck” on a decision. Let our trained facilitators help guide your organization through a process that will lead to a solution.
Additional services to executives, leaders, and business owners include:
- Personal “Think-Tank” Team
- “Shadow Observer” Services
- Presentation and Report Creation/ Review
- Professional Resource and Support
- Failure Analysis
- Strategic Planning
- Management Effectiveness
- Negotiation Assistance
- Organization Skills Assessment
- Speech Writer
Resources
What is leadership coaching?
Coaching is a one-on-one process for the purpose of helping you to clarify and achieve your professional goals. The ultimate goal of the process is to have a positive impact upon student achievement through the exercise of effective leadership. The Coach will use a variety of strategies to support your learning. At times your coach will play an instructional role, serving as a personal teacher, consultant and collaborator. Often, your coach will take what we call a facilitative approach, stimulating your learning through questioning, by providing you with feedback, helping you to analyze your perceptions and behaviors, and guide you as you experiment with new ways of doing things. Unlike many other professional development models, your coach is there to meet, target, and accelerate your effectiveness with your individual needs. Byproducts of this work include increased employee satisfaction, productivity and decreased employee turnover. to create a positive workplace cultureCreating a “great place to work” is no accident.
What kinds of things will we do in coaching?
You and your coach will meet on a regular basis and every session will be different. While much of your time will be spent in conversation, it is also important that your coach has the opportunity to observe you interacting with people in your work environment, and doing real work such as leading meetings and conferencing with staff. You and your coach may also decide to use survey instruments and other data sources to gather feedback and information to use in the coaching process.
Are these sessions confidential?
Being a leader is a highly sensitive, demanding, and political position, and confidentiality is critical to the success of coaching. Your coach will never share the content of a session unless there is an explicit understanding with the client.
Is coaching a remedial process?
Absolutely not. Top athletes, business leaders, and other organizational leaders take advantage of coaching as an important tool for professional growth. Staff appreciate that their supervisor is participating in coaching and that they are modeling lifelong learning for them.
TED - Atul Gawande MD
Atul Gawande is author of several best-selling books, including Complications: A Surgeon's Notes on an Imperfect Science, Better: A Surgeon's Notes on Performance, Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End and The Checklist Manifesto TED talk - Want to improve - get a coach
Harvard Business Review
If You Want to Get Better at Something, Ask Yourself These Two Questions…….
Harvard Business Review - 2 questions leading to coaching
Ivy Business Journal article on Executive Coaching
Ivy League Journal - Executive Coaching
Adam Grant LinkedIn Influencer - coaching and mentoring
Mentors are good - coaches are better
Our Team
Dr. Janelle Woodward is an experienced and equity-minded school leader who has obtained proven results in increasing student achievement, positively transforming school and district culture, and initiating networks of support for administrators and teachers. Over the course of her career, she has held expansive administrative roles. Her passion lies in supporting school administrators through the coaching process.
Most recently, Dr. Woodward served as the Assistant Superintendent of Teaching and Learning with the Pleasanton Unified School District (PUSD). During her tenure in the district, she provided effective leadership that was instrumental in supporting students, staff and the community during the COVID-19 pandemic. She has served as a Director at the Riverside County Office of Education (RCOE), high school principal in the Moreno Valley Unified School District (MVUSD), and middle school principal and elementary school principal in the Riverside Unified School District (RUSD).
Dr. Woodward holds a doctorate from Cal Poly Pomona in Educational Leadership. In addition to her coaching role at TRIGroup, Dr. Woodward is also an adjunct professor at Cal Poly Pomona. She also serves on the California Practitioners Advisory Group (CPAG) that provides advisement to the California Department of Education (CDE).
Dr. Woodward has earned multiple awards and recognition, including Cal Poly Pomona “Distinguished Alumni,” “Principal of the Year,” and the PTA Council “Principal of the Year.”
Dr. Pam VandeKamp serves as one of the TRiGroup’s Directors and has enjoyed an extensive career as an educator in California. She has worked for over 40 years in both private and public schools, spending the past 28 years in the Bay Area as a bilingual teacher and elementary school principal in demographically diverse school settings. Most recently, she served as a Director of Assessment and Accountability, where she oversaw district wide assessments as well as all aspects of the Local Control Accountability Plan (LCAP) State and Federal funding and the English Learner program.
Dr. VandeKamp earned her Bachelor of Arts Degree in English from UC Santa Barbara and a Master’s in Educational Leadership from UC Berkeley, conducting research on developing effective use of data teams in a school setting. She completed Doctoral Studies in Educational Leadership from UC Berkeley. Her doctoral dissertation focused on providing professional development for site administrators to improve observation and coaching of classroom instruction.
Dr. VandeKamp draws on her expertise interfacing with all aspects of the educational system, including human resources, student services and business services to engage in collaborative work with clients in order to make progress toward identified goals.
Dr. Peter I. Parenti serves as one of TRiGroup's Vice Presidents and is a California credentialed teacher and administrator. He has twenty-six years of experience working in public education, serving as a middle school teacher, elementary and secondary school principal, a director of curriculum and instruction, and an assistant superintendent of educational services.
Dr. Parenti earned undergraduate degrees from California State University Hayward in Liberal Arts and the University of Florence in Italy in Renaissance literature and art history. He earned his Masters Degree from St. Mary's College of Moraga where his studies emphasized teacher leadership and high quality professional development. He earned his Doctorate Degree from the University of California at Berkeley, where his thesis focussed on issues of equity and inequity in public school leadership.
Dr. Parenti brings his extensive experience and knowledge to TRiGroup and serves as the lead for business strategic planning while providing consult to various staff in public and charter schools throughout the United States.
Meet the Executive Director
Shaun McElroy
shaun@trigroup.us
For nearly 15 years Shaun has served leaders in the San Francisco Bay Area in all phases of their careers. Shaun’s leadership has been recognized on the local, regional, state and national levels. Shaun is certified in two research-based coaching methodologies and he uses these skills strategically to assist leaders in building sustainable strength-based practices. Shaun's experience includes contracting with 26 bay area agencies.
In 2015 Shaun built a two-year research-based leadership development program (LDP) for beginning leaders. From 2015-2020 the LDP grew to include executive leadership coaching for all levels of leaders from beginning - C-Suite. Shaun hired, trained and supervised 65 leadership coaches who served over 250 leaders. Shaun also developed and delivered several presentations on research-based leadership "best" practices for leaders.
Meet the Team
Dr. Janelle Woodward
janelle@trigroup.us
Dr. Janelle Woodward is an experienced and equity-minded school leader who has obtained proven results in increasing student achievement, positively transforming school and district culture, and initiating networks of support for administrators and teachers. Over the course of her career, she has held expansive administrative roles. Her passion lies in supporting school administrators through the coaching process.
Most recently, Dr. Woodward served as the Assistant Superintendent of Teaching and Learning with the Pleasanton Unified School District (PUSD). During her tenure in the district, she provided effective leadership that was instrumental in supporting students, staff and the community during the COVID-19 pandemic. She has served as a Director at the Riverside County Office of Education (RCOE), high school principal in the Moreno Valley Unified School District (MVUSD), and middle school principal and elementary school principal in the Riverside Unified School District (RUSD).
Dr. Woodward holds a doctorate from Cal Poly Pomona in Educational Leadership. In addition to her coaching role at TRIGroup, Dr. Woodward is also an adjunct professor at Cal Poly Pomona. She also serves on the California Practitioners Advisory Group (CPAG) that provides advisement to the California Department of Education (CDE).
Dr. Woodward has earned multiple awards and recognition, including Cal Poly Pomona “Distinguished Alumni,” “Principal of the Year,” and the PTA Council “Principal of the Year.”
Dr. Pam VandeKamp
pam@trigroup.us
Dr. Pam VandeKamp serves as one of the TRiGroup’s Directors and has enjoyed an extensive career as an educator in California. She has worked for over 40 years in both private and public schools, spending the past 28 years in the Bay Area as a bilingual teacher and elementary school principal in demographically diverse school settings. Most recently, she served as a Director of Assessment and Accountability, where she oversaw district wide assessments as well as all aspects of the Local Control Accountability Plan (LCAP) State and Federal funding and the English Learner program.
Dr. VandeKamp earned her Bachelor of Arts Degree in English from UC Santa Barbara and a Master’s in Educational Leadership from UC Berkeley, conducting research on developing effective use of data teams in a school setting. She completed Doctoral Studies in Educational Leadership from UC Berkeley. Her doctoral dissertation focused on providing professional development for site administrators to improve observation and coaching of classroom instruction.
Dr. VandeKamp draws on her expertise interfacing with all aspects of the educational system, including human resources, student services and business services to engage in collaborative work with clients in order to make progress toward identified goals.
Dr. Peter I. Parenti
peter@trigroup.us
Dr. Peter I. Parenti serves as one of TRiGroup's Vice Presidents and is a California credentialed teacher and administrator. He has twenty-six years of experience working in public education, serving as a middle school teacher, elementary and secondary school principal, a director of curriculum and instruction, and an assistant superintendent of educational services.
Dr. Parenti earned undergraduate degrees from California State University Hayward in Liberal Arts and the University of Florence in Italy in Renaissance literature and art history. He earned his Masters Degree from St. Mary's College of Moraga where his studies emphasized teacher leadership and high quality professional development. He earned his Doctorate Degree from the University of California at Berkeley, where his thesis focussed on issues of equity and inequity in public school leadership.
Dr. Parenti brings his extensive experience and knowledge to TRiGroup and serves as the lead for business strategic planning while providing consult to various staff in public and charter schools throughout the United States.