October 10, 2024, CHAPEL HILL, N.C.— Fifteen North Carolina school systems, including the state’s five largest districts—Wake, Charlotte-Mecklenburg, Guilford, Winston-Salem-Forsyth, and Cumberland—are leading the first wave of schools nationally to receive Certified Opportunity Culture Schools™ status.
The schools earning this designation have implemented innovative models that extend the reach of excellent teachers and the small teams they lead to more students, for more pay, within regular school budgets. Certified schools have taken steps toward meeting standards correlated with student learning growth.
Third-party studies, including one focused on Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools (CMS), have shown that Opportunity Culture® models boost student learning an extra half-year annually, on average. Recent data support these findings.