Opportunity Culture Audio

It’s a winning formula: school paraprofessional + tutoring culture focus + support and training + pay supplement = a highly coveted role. How do schools and students both win when districts begin using the Opportunity Culture® Reach Associate™ role? This audio version of our short publication “Next-Level TAs” explains, with input from district leaders and those who have taken the RA™ role. From th...

When a coalition came together to form PA Needs Teachers in 2022, led by Teach Plus Pennsylvania and the National Center on Education and the Economy, it first advocated for policy wins around bringing teachers into the profession, such as student teacher stipends. But Pennsylvania had another problem—teachers got in, but then they got out. In February, Teach Plus Pennsylvania policy fellows publi...

When Rockingham County Schools, a rural North Carolina district, needed a teaching team leader with a record of high-growth learning for high school math, it faced a dilemma many rural areas confront: no candidate with that record of learning growth who was also ready to lead adults.  The Remotely Located Multi-Classroom Leader® role came to the rescue. Public Impact® designed this MCL™ role to al...

In recent months, both Mississippi First and Teach Plus Mississippi have issued reports advocating for bold legislative action that would fund staffing redesign pilots, and they highlighted Opportunity Culture® design. In this audio piece, hear from the leaders of both groups and a Teach Plus Mississippi policy fellow about the dire need they hear from teachers throughout the state to ease the con...

At Jackson Public Schools in Mississippi, Deputy Superintendent Michael Cormack brought big changes to student outcomes—no surprise after his leadership of the Barksdale Reading Institute, which sparked the state’s stunning literacy turnaround. Under Cormack, Jackson’s state accountability rating went from an F to a C, and he kicked off an initiative to boost the percentage of third graders who pa...

Chatham County Superintendent Anthony Jackson, named as the 2020 North Carolina Superintendent of the Year while serving as superintendent of Vance County Schools, says districts—especially rural systems—can do far more if they focus investments on the capacity of their staff. A self-proclaimed “disciple” of the Opportunity Culture® initiative, he has led both districts to take calculated risks le...

 For Charlotte-Mecklenburg Superintendent Crystal Hill, leading 185 schools and 141,000 students, success means providing deep support for a staff that now sees 60 percent of its teachers coming from a non-traditional background. The district, a pioneer in piloting Opportunity Culture® team teaching models and in quickly scaling up to many more schools, posted dramatic learning growth results in 2...

When Charlie Butler returned to his hometown to become superintendent of the Madison Parish School District in northeastern Louisiana, he was looking for innovative ways to help the persistently low-performing system. With help from a state “instructional coherence cohort,” the district combined the support of Opportunity Culture® teaching teams with a focus on the implementation of high-quality i...

When Carlsbad Municipal Schools Superintendent Gerry Washburn joined the district, it was facing high teacher vacancies and low student success—and a lot of low morale. A chance conversation with Ector County, Texas, Superintendent Scott Muri showed Washburn a new option—Opportunity Culture® school redesign. With inclusive leadership and a determination to get design and implementation of new staf...

In the first of an occasional “Superintendents Speak” series, Superintendent Rodney McNeill of Greene County and Superintendent Rodney Peterson of Person County discuss why they chose to use Opportunity Culture® models in their districts, and why they elected to have their districts go through a fast-track design workshop together in the spring, to be able to begin using Multi-Classroom Leader® te...

Should districts and schools considering redesigned staffing wade in, or dive in? Hear what superintendents and district leaders have told us over the past decade about their thoughts on how to best improve student learning growth and teacher careers.

When Superintendent Stephanie Howard came to Midland ISD in the Permian Basin of Texas, she knew what success with Opportunity Culture® teaching team models should look like, after working with them in neighboring Ector County ISD as a deputy superintendent. Although Midland ISD was using these teams as well, several Opportunity Culture® fundamentals weren’t being followed. Howard and Jessie Garci...

Viewing Opportunity Culture® implementation as a single, cost-neutral solution for multiple issues—student outcomes and educator career paths and satisfaction—Winchester Public Schools Superintendent Jason van Heukelum discusses why the district “jumped all in” and how that’s working out, with strong learning growth results. For the 2023–24 school year, seventh-grade math students were number 1 in...

With the Multi-Classroom Leader™ role, some teachers who want to grow in their  profession choose to stay in the classroom because they've been empowered to lead without having to be an administrator, says Winchester Public Schools superintendent Jason van Heukelum. 

Superintendent Jason van Heukelum of Winchester Public Schools developed a rigorous selection process at the division level to guard against bias and to send a message that teachers selected for the team leader role have to produce results.

For the 2023–24 school year, Winchester Public Schools had student learning growth results to celebrate: Their seventh-grade math students were number 1 in the state for learning growth; fourth-grade math was in the top 10, and eighth-grade math was in the top 12. All three of these grades had 100 percent of their students reached by Multi-Classroom Leader teaching teams. And across the district,...

Math Team Reach Teacher™ Brian Tavenner discusses his wholehearted belief in the power of extensive small-group instruction to improve all students’ outcomes and the difference it makes in how he works with student learning data. He delves into reflections and how small groups work in his middle school classes, with 50 students split in half through Reach Associate™ support. 

 Since 2017, the Vance County, N.C., school system has used Opportunity Culture® teaching teams to improve teacher retention and student learning. How has the district sustained implementation through a pandemic and transition to a new superintendent? Superintendent Cindy Bennett discusses what the district values in the support these teams provide, and how it continues to learn and adjust its use...

Successful Opportunity Culture implementation in a school district isn’t all up to the schools: Getting broad participation and communication from multiple district offices provides the support schools need. In North Carolina’s Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools, Area Superintendent Timisha Barnes-Jones and Tina Lupton, executive director of professional learning, have collaborated closely to en...

A recent report from the National Center for Education Statistics shows that high-dosage tutoring reaches only about one in 10 students—despite the national push for it. But if schools build innovative staffing models such as Opportunity Culture models, small-group tutoring can happen routinely, during the school day. Schools should think now about using their Covid funding for planning and implem...

Lucama Elementary, a rural, Title I school in Wilson County, North Carolina, implemented several Opportunity Culture roles in 2021–22. Following a focus on data-driven, small-group tutoring, instruction based on the science of reading, and greater educator collaboration through Multi-Classroom Leader teams, the school dramatically increased student learning growth. Principal April Shackleford and...

Superintendent Scott Muri, a finalist for state superintendent of the year in Texas, has Opportunity Culture experience in multiple districts; since he brought Opportunity Culture models to Ector County Independent School District in 2019, the district has seen significant improvement in student learning and teacher recruitment. Hear Muri’s thoughts on the impact of Opportunity Culture innovations...

Susan Hendricks was the principal of Ross Elementary in Ector County, Texas, before becoming the district’s director of leadership in August. Under her leadership, Ross Elementary received high ratings on the annual, anonymous survey given to Opportunity Culture educators. When we spoke with Hendricks earlier this year, she credited that success to having structures in place that the whole school...

Principal Julie Shields leads a school that ranks very high on Opportunity Culture surveys for communicating its Opportunity Culture plans and impact. She spoke with Public Impact about how she thinks through a communications strategy to keep Opportunity Culture implementation strong over many years.

As Anne Claire Tejtel Nornhold, who leads the Opportunity Culture work in Baltimore City Public Schools, prepared to move out of that role in spring 2022, she spoke with Public Impact about what worked well and her advice for other district Opportunity Culture directors. Nornhold is a strong advocate for Opportunity Culture implementation as a powerful means to improve student outcomes and retain...