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Fourteen respondents (60.87%) reported that they themselves, or the teachers with whom they were working, had at least a partially negative initial response to the coaching program they participated in. These responses represented a mix of feelings.

One source of resistance were the feelings that the coaching program was another

initiative that would be adopted for a short period of time before being abandoned by the school. Respondent 2 (administrator) described the initial resistance of some of the teachers at her school by saying “teachers may have a tendency to say this [program] is this year; this won’t keep happening.” Respondent 15 (coach) agreed with this sentiment: “there's a lot of history of teachers, you know, fielding a lot of different sorts of initiatives and so it was very predictable that there would be a wide range of receptions. Some teachers were reluctant to move off of the sort of… traditional guided reading routines that's one set.”

Another negative response was that teachers were already busy and overworked, the coaching programs were seen as an extra responsibility. Respondent 19 (coach) reflected on one resistant teacher with which he worked. He reported “I think [her resistance] was kind of like “one more thing” honestly.” Respondent 14 (teacher) expressed this by saying:

What was my first impression? You want to know the truth? "What else do we have to do!?" To be dead honest. I was like "arg, how much - I have enough things to do already.

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And now you're going to pile on something else. And we have to get all this stuff into this timeframe and make it all work out." My first reaction was not a positive one.

Respondent 14 (teacher) believed this response would be typical of other teachers as well: Initially no one is going to want to do it. I can just be totally honest. No one is going to want to take on a new challenge. We are being challenged enough by the district, the state, the way we have to plan. Everything is just - we have to do so much more than we had to do a year ago. Five years ago. So initially I think most people would be resistant. I'm just going to be honest. Those of us who aren't shallow are going to learn to open our ears and give it a shot. At the end of the day it doesn't matter if I wanted to do it or didn't want to do it, the bottom line is I'm a team player. Boss says you need to do this I may not want to but if the boss says it I'm going to do it. I found out after doing it that "hey, this is alright." Unfortunately, if I had to give my honest opinion about other schools adopting it, initially yeah, they are going to be resistant. They don't want the new task, something else to do, something else to be responsible for. Another thing to record and turn in. No one wants that, I'm telling you right now. They are going to be resistant. But when all is said and done, if they are really here for the right reason, which is the children, then they will be at the end of the year their exit interview will sound a lot like mine. That's just my take. He further added:

I would probably say [it was most challenging] in the beginning. Obviously, like I said, most people would have a resistance to having to add something else to what they already do… First couple of days I was like "I don't want to do this" but then after that and I got into it.

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Anybody will have second thoughts about changes. New things. And I'm going to be honest and say ‘yes, I was [resistant] in the beginning. But once I knew the whole concept, the whole picture of it I was all for it. I welcomed it.

Respondent 3 (administrator) described having to address the teacher’s initial concerns, saying “there were some teachers who were very skeptical at first and that was probably the biggest challenge: easing their concerns and making sure they understood that this won’t feel like another thing.”

Other respondents expressed feeling initially overwhelmed by the coaching programs. Respondent 12 (teacher) expressed this succinctly by saying “[What about FRF was

challenging?] I would say just being overwhelmed at first.” Respondent 6 (teacher) highlighted that it was not just the coaching process, but the amount of materials associated with the

coaching programs that was overwhelming. She said:

The hardest thing is the way that we just got all of these materials - but you don't really know what to do with them. There was like lots of binders and books and it was kind of overwhelming because like when do I even have the time to sit and read through and figure out all this… we just kind of got them and it was like "oh, look through these." And I never really did get to look through everything. And a lot of it I just started doing like an exercise or two at a time. And most teachers in the first month or two were saying like "what are we even supposed to do? What are you doing?" So there was like - I feel like I showed a lot of them what to do. Whether it was right or not who knows? But there was like - that was hard. And the coaches eventually started coming and telling us "oh yeah" - but there was like no one who actually - you just kind of started it on your own. And you didn't know what you were doing.

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Respondent 10 (teacher) expressed that she felt fear at the start of the coaching program. She describes feeling

Scared at first. You know all of a sudden you are trying to take these low students and you are just told that we have to bring these kids up. So you are thinking what am I going to do… Yeah I think that's how most people are. When you start something you are afraid you are going to make mistakes. Just like how the students are, though. And so we do the same thing.

Three responding teachers shared that their initial negative feelings were linked to the lack of clarity they felt about the coaching programs. Respondent 6 (teacher) said:

I didn't fully understand what they would be doing right away… I didn't understand what these coaches would be doing. I just knew that these coaches would be at our school and help. Which sounded good. But then once the program started it just kind of made more sense.

Respondent 23 (teacher) shared some specific misconceptions she had about the role of the coaches, which caused her to feel frustrated and overwhelmed in the beginning. She said:

Before we started I thought it would be a good idea because I thought it was a little different than how it actually played out. I thought that he would have… he would show me what he was doing and then he was going to do a group by himself. I didn’t know he wanted me to do it after he did it. I thought it was a little different… When he first came and he did it, he went through them, I listened and thought, ‘that’s really great he’s going to do that with them’ so that then maybe I can take some of the higher level kids’. But then he said I was supposed to do it next. Which makes sense so you can teach me what you’re doing and stuff, so I thought that was good.

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One coach also expressed skepticism about the coaching process at the start of the program. Respondent 21 (coach) said:

I had my doubts a little bit because I was afraid that since ...we were modeling it for teachers, that teachers would be maybe offended that we couldn’t just give them the guide and do it themselves, so I kind of didn’t see the point of the modeling at first so I was a little bit skeptical about that. So that was probably my first impression…. I was curious as to maybe how the method was going to work.

Respondent 17 (coach) revealed that not fully understanding the coaching process was shared between teachers and coaches. She described her misconception by saying: “what did I think? I thought it would be more of a one on one tutorial program actually. I knew I'd be coaching but I thought I'd be working with the children more one on one.”

Although over half of the participants expressed some negative response at the start of coaching, Respondent 16 (coach) expressed that she thought a minority of participants were truly resistant to coaching. When asked how many of the teachers she worked with were resistant to her coming to their classroom in the beginning she said:

I think maybe 10%... I mean we had 6 and originally like 7 or 8... so we had 14 teachers initially. And we had 2 that were very resistant. And they were very vocal about that. So it's a small percentage.

Respondent 17 (coach) shared that she was able to build relationships with coaches that were initially resistant, but when doing so she revealed that teacher’s negative reaction at the start of coaching. Speaking of the teacher, Respondent 17 said “she even joked about it. ‘I remember how I yelled at you in the very beginning. I didn't want anything to do with you. I was so mean to you.’ ”

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