An instructional coach is a school-based educator whose main job is improving teaching — through observation and feedback, modeling, co-planning and curriculum work.
This guide covers the role at private, faith-based, Montessori, classical and charter schools, treating instructional coach, academic coach and teacher coach as one title family, and explains how charter and private schools shape the work and how to move into it.
What is an instructional coach?
An instructional coach works alongside classroom teachers.
The job's raw material is instruction itself: lessons, units, assessments, pacing and the moves a teacher makes in the room.
The role travels with a school's other academic-leadership titles — deans and curriculum directors.
In a charter network the same work can carry a dean title (at Achievement First it does); in an independent school, related work can sit beside a director of studies.
Our sources publish no wage series that isolates school-based coaches.
The closest occupation is instructional coordinators (SOC 25-9031), a group that also includes curriculum specialists outside the coaching role; BLS's Occupational Outlook Handbook reports a 2025 median of $77,440 per year for the occupation.
The instructional coach salary page carries the BLS OEWS May 2025 figures for that SOC, including the K-12 schools row that combines public district, charter and private schools.
What does a coach do with teachers?
The work runs through a repeating cycle: the coach and teacher set a goal, the coach observes or co-teaches a lesson, and the two debrief against what actually happened in the room.
Feedback is anchored to evidence from the class rather than to impressions.
Coaches model lessons and co-teach so a teacher can watch a technique before trying it.
They co-plan units, assessments and differentiation, and they help teachers read student work and assessment data.
The job also reaches the whole academic program: aligning curriculum across grade levels, facilitating team and department meetings, and leading professional-development sessions for the faculty.
Charter networks can give the work a firm shape.
At Achievement First, Academic Deans coach a portfolio of teachers and often own a particular subject or grade level, and the network ties the work to schoolwide mastery goals.
Deans of School Culture coach portfolios too, while leading school-wide efforts on culture — the network splits academic coaching from culture work.
How do coaching roles differ at charter and private schools?
Each school — and each charter network — writes its own version of the role, so postings with the same title can describe different mixes of coaching, curriculum work and teaching.
Charter networks build their own structures, and Achievement First, described above, puts the coaching inside dean roles.
Great Hearts, a classical charter network, runs the APEX Program for School Leadership, a series of short courses for developing leaders in classical schools.
Its three groups are Teacher-Leaders, Rising Leaders — the program's examples are deans and instructional coaches — and Academy Leaders, whom it identifies as heads of school.
Curriculum authority in private and charter schools sits closer to the school than in district systems.
In NCES's 2020-21 National Teacher and Principal Survey, 65.3% of private school principals and 55.8% of charter school principals said they had a major influence on establishing curriculum, against 32.8% of traditional public school principals.
That is the practical difference the survey numbers describe: in the sectors where more principals report major influence over establishing curriculum, more of that authority sits at the school.
For coaching in those sectors, expect each school's own curriculum and pedagogy to shape the work.
What other academic leadership roles exist (dean of academics, curriculum director, department chair)?
Coaching is one seat on a wider academic-leadership track.
The roles below overlap, and a single school may combine two of them under one title — which is why a job search should cover several of these words.
The academic dean (or dean of academics) — in schools that use the title, the school-level owner of curriculum and instruction.
It is the title closest to coaching: at Achievement First, the Academic Deans who coach teacher portfolios are the same leaders who often own subject or grade-level outcomes.
A director of curriculum and instruction — in schools that use the title, the owner of the academic program across a division or the school: curriculum maps, assessments and the instructional calendar.
NAIS's DASL survey tracks a separate director of studies title at NAIS member schools.
A department chair leads one subject department while staying close to the classroom.
A dean of faculty — in schools that use the title, the role that oversees the faculty itself: evaluation, growth, mentoring and staffing questions.
A dean of students, by contrast, is a student-culture and behavior role rather than an instruction role — NAIS's DASL survey tracks a median for it too.
At NAIS member schools in 2025-26, median salaries were $121,495 for a director of studies, $101,926 for a dean of students and $107,412 for the highest-paid academic department head.
All three figures come from NAIS's DASL survey, which covers NAIS member schools only.
How do you become one?
Schools define the role, so the path into it runs through hiring.
The route the data describes starts in the classroom.
Build your classroom case
Start the coaching work while you are still a teacher: mentor a new colleague, lead a grade team, run a professional-development session. BLS lists 5+ years of related experience for instructional coordinators, the closest federal occupation to a school-based coach.Add the degree schools expect
BLS lists a master's degree as the typical entry-level education for instructional coordinators. In public schools, BLS says instructional coordinators are required to have a master's degree in education or curriculum and instruction and may need a teaching or administrator license. Private schools set their own hiring expectations.Learn the school's own program
Coaching happens inside whatever curriculum and pedagogy a school runs. Waldorf schools, for example, have leadership preparation of their own: the Center for Anthroposophy/Antioch partnership and Sound Circle Center offer Waldorf school leadership and administration certificates.Apply across the title list
Search instructional coach, academic coach and teacher coach postings alongside academic dean and curriculum director titles. Browse instructional coach jobs at private, independent, faith-based and charter schools on SchoolHires.
Principal data show how long a classroom-to-leadership move can take.
NCES's 2020-21 survey put average prior teaching experience at 14.8 years for private school principals and 11.9 years for public school principals (NCES counts charter schools within its public figures).
Career information, not legal advice; confirm hiring and certification requirements with the school and your state education agency.
Requirements vary by school and state
Find instructional coach jobs
Cast a wide net across the school types SchoolHires covers: independent and private day schools, Catholic, Christian and Jewish day schools, Montessori, classical and Waldorf schools, boarding and online schools, special-education settings, and charter schools and networks.
Search more than one title.
Postings for the same work may say instructional coach, academic coach or teacher coach, and charter networks may post the work under academic dean titles.
Build your application on evidence: a coaching cycle described end to end, student work before and after, a professional-development session you ran, a team you led.
Those artifacts let a hiring team see the coaching, not just the credentials.
Browse instructional coach jobs to see what is currently open, and read each posting's structure against the sections above.