ABOUT

As educators, our training and experience as certified professional coaches and facilitators has enhanced our skills and our commitment to sharing the coaching mindset and process in service of deep professional growth and change from the inside out.

Our educational backgrounds in curriculum development, professional learning and development (from Kindergarten to Grade 12 to higher education), health and physical education (Kate), and drama in education (Jeanie) have grounded us in adult education, experiential learning, the centrality of capacity building in education and leadership, and the importance of the integration of the new learning over time in order for significant growth and change to happen.

As educational leaders, let us be committed to listening deeply to the unfolding, ongoing conversations of our own and others’ desires in the world. It is through such collaboration with colleagues, staff and students that we can discover and uncover who we are becoming.

Kate Sharpe
M.Ed., Certified Professional Coach, A.C.P.C.

Kate Sharpe is an author, experienced certified professional coach, award winning educator and coach-facilitator who designs and delivers customized mentoring and coaching programming to support districts, schools and teachers in enhancing their leadership and instructional capacities.

Kate, together with Jeanie Nishimura, designed, created and founded the Mentor-Coaching Institute (MCI) an internationally recognized professional learning program which brings mentoring and coaching together as powerful allies to support a robust process for leading, teaching and learning in relationships. As a result of the relevance, practicality and rigour of Kate and Jeanie’s programming, the MCI and their book When Mentoring Meets Coaching (Pearson Canada, 2017) now serve as foundational components of other professional learning programs and Additional Qualification Courses for educational leaders, both in Canada and the United States.

Kate’s drive to improve learning, growth and well being is rooted in her years of experience as a leadership coach in the private and public sector, teacher in the classroom and her work designing professional learning programs, mentoring and coach training for principals, vice principals, teachers and district leaders and her design of an award-winning coaching program for high-risk youth transitioning out of incarceration and probation with Greater Toronto Area’s youth courts. The PACT Life Plan and Coaching Program received the International Coach Federation (ICF) Prism Award for its impact and contribution.

Central to all of Kate’s work has been her deep commitment to the concept of capacity building and to providing the skills and training to help leaders facilitate the conversations and establish the relationships that engage and support learning and growth in others.

Jeanie Nishimura
M.Ed., PCC, CPCC

Jeanie is an experienced educator and leadership coach who draws on her background in the arts, curriculum design, adult education and coaching to foster learning and growth in individuals and groups.

As an educator, Jeanie uses her knowledge of structuring experiential learning experiences to maximize participant involvement, commitment, and integrated learning. As a former member of the founding faculty within the Adler Faculty of Professional Coaching, Adler Graduate Professional School, Jeanie designed curriculum and facilitated within the Adler Coaching Certificate Program.

Since 2007, Jeanie has collaborated with Kate Sharpe in offering programming that invites educators in all sectors to embrace the skills of mentor-coaching as an impactful framework for building capacity. They co-founded The Mentor-Coaching Institute and co-authored, When Mentoring Meets Coaching: Shifting the Stance in Education, 2017.

Jeanie is a Professional Certified Coach (PCC) with the International Coach Federation, has a M.Ed. in Curriculum from the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto (OISE/ UT), specializing in the Arts and is also a certified coach through Coaches Training Institute (CPCC). She also brings 28 years of experience in public education, as a Drama consultant and teacher and 20 years as a designer/ instructor for the Additional Qualifications Courses: Dramatic Arts Specialist at OISE/ UT.

Jeanie is a two-time winner of the International Coach Federation (ICF): GTA Prism Award, celebrating excellence in business achievement and coaching.

With the Support of Experienced MCI Coach-facilitators

The MCI coach-facilitators are a group of skilled principals who were selected by their professional association, the Ontario Principals’ Council, to join our team given their work, leadership and mentor-coaching in their schools and across their districts. The depth of knowledge that these experienced school leaders bring, as certified coaches, as instructional leaders and as deeply committed educators ensures that the training stays firmly connected to the reality of life in a school and what it truly takes to support capacity building amidst the complexity and busyness of leading and teaching.

Each coach-facilitator has completed the MCI 4-day interactive training, as a participant, followed by our 10-day coach-facilitator training intensive. They have also taken additional coach training to deepen their understanding, experience and skills. When joining the team, they engage in ongoing debriefs and feedback as part of the co-facilitation process.