Page | 1

INTERVIEW GUIDE FOR COMPARISON SCHOOL TEACHERS AND COUNSELORS

TARGETED RESPONDENT: These interview questions are intended for teachers and counselors at comparison 

schools that may have School Improvement Grants but are not served by grantees of the Corporation for National 

and Community Service’s AmeriCorps Program.

CONTENT: This document contains interview questions to be asked of teachers and counselors at comparison 

schools NOT served by grantees.

1. Does your school have volunteers, support staff, or external partners whose role is to support schoolwide implementation of your school improvement initiative? If so, please describe their roles and 

organizations (if they represent an external partner). What do those volunteers, support staff, or external 

partners do at your school? Did the activities change throughout the year? If so, then why?

_____________________________________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________________________

2. What level of interaction did you have with these volunteers, support staff, or external partners? In what 

capacity, if any, did you work directly with these individuals?

_____________________________________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________________________

3. Do these volunteers, support staff, or external partners work directly with students? Can you please 

describe the process for assigning tasks to those individuals who work with students you teach or serve as 

a counselor?

_____________________________________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________________________
Page | 2

4. How did you communicate with these volunteers, support staff, or external partners about the progress 

of your students with whom they were working?

_____________________________________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________________________

5. How prepared were these volunteers, support staff, or external partners with whom you worked directly 

to support your school? What recommendations do you have about improving the training for such 

individuals before or once they begin to work in schools?

_____________________________________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________________________

6. Have these volunteers, support staff, or external partners had a positive academic influence on the 

students they work with?

_____________________________________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________________________

7. Have these volunteers, support staff, or external partners had a positive influence on the students they 

work with in terms of improved attendance, behavior, engagement, or socio-emotional health?

_____________________________________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________________________

8. Who supervised these volunteers, support staff, or external partners? How adequate is the supervision of 

these individuals? By school faculty/staff? By a designated team leader/supervisor/coordinator?

_____________________________________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________________________

9. In which of the following ways did these individuals contribute to your school’s capacity to implement its

school improvement plan? Specifically, how did they help the school build capacity through...

a) fostering respect among students and staff?

b) involving families (e.g. in attending events, providing access to information and resources to support their 

child’s education, helping students complete homework, volunteering in child’s classroom)?

c) meeting the academic needs of specific groups of students?

d) meeting the behavioral and/or socio-emotional health needs of specific groups of students? 

e) filling additional instructional/support staff positions?

f) supporting teachers in the use of data/assessments and with classroom activities?
Page | 3

g) providing before-, after-school, or extended learning time programming?

h) improving the school environment and climate?

i) other activities and contributions? (please specify)

_____________________________________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________________________

10. How satisfied are you with the effectiveness of interventions provided by these individuals?

Probe (IF YES): What worked well?

Probe (IF NO): What needs to be improved?

_____________________________________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________________________

11. What challenges have you experienced in implementing interventions led by volunteers, support staff, or 

external partners in your classroom or in student counseling/tutoring programs? How were they 

resolved?

_____________________________________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________________________