Public Impact

When Dr. Tina Lupton and Dr. Timisha Barnes-Jones joined the Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools, Opportunity Culture implementation was happening in the midst of Covid. Lupton, the executive director of professional learning, and Barnes-Jones, the area superintendent for a network of 15 transformation schools, used their experience in other Opportunity Culture districts to help the schools make some adjustments. By the following year, three of those Opportunity Culture schools came off North Carolina’s “low-performing” list; nine of the 11 schools implementing Opportunity Culture models either met or exceeded the bar set by the state for expected student learning growth—results they attribute in part to these models.

Former Multi-Classroom Leader® Okema Owens Simpson led the development of Public Impact’s on-demand module, Building a Scalable, Sustainable Tutoring Culture for All. In this podcast, Simpson provides an overview of the Multi-Classroom Leader® role and the power of small-group, in-school tutoring through MCL teams, as a preview for watching the module and understanding our SIMPLE framework for building a tutoring culture. Listen here.

Opportunity Culture Audio is now on Apple podcasts, Spotify, and more podcast services! Hear from Opportunity Culture educators as they share what they do and what they have they learned about successfully redesigning school roles to reach all students with excellent teaching. Subscribe to Opportunity Culture Audio as we address some of the stickiest issues facing education!

The March newsletter includes information about an upcoming module, several new Opportunity Culture materials, spring resources, and media highlights. See an excerpt below.

The January newsletter includes a new Opportunity Culture video about the science of reading, a prompt for Opportunity Culture principals, winter resources, and media highlights.

How can innovative staffing help reduce staffing shortages and boost learning? Public Impact’s latest brief explains how the Opportunity Culture initiative uses innovative staffing designs to create new career options for educators, increase collaboration and support, and incorporate high-impact tutoring for all students into the school day—within regular budgets.

The December newsletter includes a new Opportunity Culture audio, video, and blog. It also includes a prompt for Opportunity Culture principals, winter resources, and media highlights.

As a temporary solution to a shortage of paraprofessional reach associates who can provide release time, Multi-Classroom Leader® Sunil Dutt combines one of his math blocks with that of a new teacher into one large group meeting in the library, so that Dutt can co-teach and model instruction.

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 Lucama educators explain their success, and why it led them in 2022 to expand to schoolwide Opportunity Culture roles in the latest Opportunity Culture audio piece.