We are excited to announce that 366 schools in 28 districts in eight states have been awarded the new “Certified Opportunity Culture School™, Provisional Level, 2023–24” designation! Showing their commitment to reaching all students with excellent teaching, consistently, and all educators with excellent, paid career opportunities, these schools can use their certified status to attract applicants looking for support and career paths, and reassure parents, their community, state, and funders that they are using models that increase student learning.
Certification levels convey strength of implementation in key areas, including selectivity of Opportunity Culture® roles, student access to these roles’ team-based instruction, small-group, high-dosage tutoring, and financial sustainability of plans.
See the complete list of all newly certified schools in Arkansas, California, Louisiana, Maryland, New Mexico, North Carolina, Texas, and Virginia here.
The newly certified schools are all at the “provisional” level reflecting their 2023–24 school year, and they can attain higher certification levels for the current school year and beyond.
“Terms like ‘strategic staffing’ and ‘innovative staffing’ are becoming more familiar in education circles as leaders recognize the need to rethink roles, schedules and use of funding in schools. We are pleased to celebrate the first set of certified schools, whose educators raised their hands to tackle redesign work and are now doubling down on staffing design with results. Design details matter for students!” said Stephanie Dean, strategic director and senior vice president of Opportunity Culture® policy and outreach at Public Impact®, which founded the models.
Research, Data, Surveys Show Results
Research shows the power of the Opportunity Culture® models these schools use, and the latest annual, anonymous survey of educators in all schools using the models shows nearly unanimous support for their school’s implementation, with 99% of educators in the Multi-Classroom Leader™ role and 91% of educators in all Opportunity Culture® roles agreeing that they want it to continue in their school.
In North Carolina, the five largest school systems—Wake, Charlotte-Mecklenburg, Guilford, Winston-Salem-Forsyth and Cumberland—are implementing Opportunity Culture® models and have certified schools.
Newly released state data for the 2023–24 year shows that North Carolina Title I schools that have been using the models for four or more years were 43% more likely to make high schoolwide growth (exceeding state growth expectations) than Title I schools not using the models. Even in early years of implementation, the models make an immediate difference: The data shows that all Title I schools using the models, including those in early years, were 33% more likely to make high schoolwide growth.
“Almost two years ago, the Public Impact team focused on two innovation goals: to drastically reduce the cost of boosting student learning and educator pay through data-driven staffing models and protect those results,” Co-President Emily Ayscue Hassel said.
Those goals are being met, Co-President Bryan C. Hassel said. “First, we’re meeting the goals with the new ‘design’ room in the Opportunity Culture online portal, which guides educators through a school or district’s staffing design process at a tiny fraction of the price just two years ago. And second, through this new certification system, which educators and families can count on when they choose schools.”
Through the Opportunity Culture® portal, districts can now take advantage of the Self-Driven Design™ process, the result of a two-year effort to reduce costs for schools and systems to create their own Opportunity Culture® plans. The asynchronous process leads to a recommendation for a staffing design to fit each school’s context, based on research. The courses may also apply toward educators’ continuing education requirements.