The adults in your classroom need agreements too.

A guided 60–90 minute dialogue process for co-teachers, instructional coaches, and teaching teams to build working agreements rooted in shared values, clear roles, and honest relationship.

You've probably spent time helping students build community in your classroom. You've done check-ins, set norms, maybe run a circle or two.

But when did you and your co-teacher sit down and actually talk about how you two are going to work together?

Not "here's the schedule" or "you take small groups." The real conversation. Who gives feedback to whom, and how? What happens when you disagree in front of students? Who holds what responsibility when things get hard? How do you navigate it when one of you has more institutional power than the other?

Most teaching teams skip that conversation. Not because they don't care, but because no one gave them a structure for it, and the school year starts whether you're ready or not.

Students watch everything the adults do. They are reading the relationship between you and your co-teacher constantly. When that relationship has unspoken tension, unclear roles, or avoided conflict, they feel it, even when no one says a word.

This guide gives you the structure to have the conversation you haven't had yet.

WHO THIS IS FOR

This guide is for:
Co-teachers and teaching pairs who want to build a working relationship grounded in equity and trust, not just proximity and good intentions.

Instructional coaches who support teaching teams and want a concrete tool for helping adults in the same classroom get aligned before the year gets away from them.

School administrators and department leads who want to offer their staff something beyond professional development sessions, a real process for building the adult relationships that make classrooms work.

If you're in a classroom with another adult and you've never formally talked about how you're going to do this together, this guide is for you.

WHAT'S INSIDE

This is a 60–90 minute dialogue-based process, designed to be done together, not assigned and read separately.

You'll move through reflective prompts and guided conversation on:

Communication and feedback styles — How do you each prefer to give and receive feedback? What do you need when something isn't working? When do you want to address it, and how?

Role clarity and division of responsibilities — Who does what, and how do you both feel about it? Where is there overlap, and where are there gaps?

Navigating conflict and harm — What do you do when you disagree? What happens if one of you causes harm to a student or to each other? How do you address it without letting it fester?

Ongoing care and check-ins — How will you stay connected through the year? What does it look like to tend to this relationship over time, not just at the start?

Power dynamics — The guide includes specific guidance for surfacing and addressing the power that lives in your working relationship, whether that's role-based, racial, or institutional. This doesn't get easier if you ignore it.

Revisiting your agreements — A process is only useful if you return to it. The guide includes prompts for revisiting and revising your agreements as the year moves.

WHAT THIS ISN'T

This is not a checklist to complete and file away. It's a starting point for an ongoing working relationship.

This is not a conflict resolution tool. It's a proactive practice, something you do before things break down, so you have a foundation to return to when they do.

This is not a neutral document. It's grounded in Restorative Justice values: interconnection, equity, relational accountability, and the belief that the quality of the relationship between adults directly shapes what students experience in that room.

WHEN TO USE IT

Use this guide during back-to-school planning before the year starts. Use it in a coaching session when a team needs to reset. Use it anytime the working relationship between adults in your classroom needs attention, which is more often than most schools make space for.

Frequently Asked Questions

1. Do both people need to buy it, or just one? One purchase covers your team. Buy it once, download it, and do the process together.
2. What format does it come in? It's a PDF, available for immediate download after purchase.
3. Do we need to have RJ experience to use this? No. The guide is designed for any teaching team regardless of where they are with Restorative Justice. It will introduce some RJ-grounded framing, but the prompts are accessible whether you're new to the framework or have been practicing for years.
4. Can I use this with a paraprofessional or classroom assistant, not just a co-teacher? Yes. The guide is written for any adult working alongside you in a classroom, including instructional aides, special education support staff, and student teachers.
5. What if we're mid-year and things are already strained? This guide works as a reset, not just a starting point. If your working relationship needs attention and you haven't had the foundational conversation yet, mid-year is still the right time to have it.
6. We already get along fine. Do we still need this? Getting along is a start. This guide goes beyond compatibility into actual agreements, shared values, how you'll handle conflict, how you'll address power, and how you'll take care of the relationship over time. Good rapport doesn't automatically cover any of that.
7. I'm a coach buying this for a team I support. How does that work? The guide is designed to be facilitated by the two people in the working relationship, but a coach can absolutely introduce it, hold space for the conversation, and use the prompts as a coaching tool. Many of the prompts work well with a third person present to help the team move through them.