Opportunity Culture® News and Views
By Steven Kennedy; first published by EducationNC, February 24, 2020
Opportunity Culture kept me from leaving the classroom.
When our first child was born, my wife and I discussed our goals. There was just no way I was going to be able to support our family by being a teacher in North Carolina. It wasn’t what we wanted our family life to look like. Read more…
By Sharon Kebschull Barrett, February 13, 2020
Edgecombe County, North Carolina, Multi-Classroom Leader® Cherelle Sanders spoke on Wednesday night at the “Recognizing Top Talent: National Voices on Identifying and Retaining NC’s Best Teachers” panel discussion hosted by the Belk Foundation.
Watch the short video of her powerful talk–why having multi-classroom leaders matters, and the incredible student learning growth her team of brand-new teachers achieved last year. Read more…
By Margaret High and Sharon Kebschull Barrett, February 11, 2020
Whenever the Public Impact team interviews Opportunity Culture educators, one word comes up again and again: support. With multi-classroom leaders (MCLs) at the core, support flows up and down—up from MCLs serving as an instructional leadership team for their principals, down from MCLs to their teaching teams, and even sideways, with MCLs forming a supportive team for one another.
That schoolwide support becomes even more powerful when backed up by strong, vocal support from a superintendent and central office. Read more…
By Public Impact, February 6, 2020
To help Opportunity Culture multi-classroom leaders, their teaching teams, and other teachers lead student success, Public Impact has added to its suite of instructional excellence support. Our tools and professional development are based on experiences and feedback of top Opportunity Culture educators, as well as hard research.
We provide a free, full set of tools on Instructional Leadership and Excellence to help educators master each element—free training, teaching team study guides, educator videos, and other help for teachers, multi-classroom leaders, principals, and others in Opportunity Culture schools. Read more…
By Sharon Kebschull Barrett, January 16, 2020
I’ve had the privilege over several visits last year to Edgecombe County Public Schools to interview Opportunity Culture educators in many roles, from the superintendent to a beginning teacher. Located in a rural county an hour east of Raleigh, North Carolina, Edgecombe schools face challenges in recruiting and retaining great educators who have many large-city options nearby.
But the enthusiasm, commitment, and all-in-this-together spirit of Edgecombe wins visitors over quickly, and even after long days of interviews, my colleague Beverley Tyndall and I leave feeling rejuvenated. Read more…
By Margaret High, December 20, 2019
Opportunity Culture kept growing in 2019 to bring excellent teaching to students and career opportunities to educators. Our 10 most-read posts in 2019 included educator columns, new districts, the hot topic of the science of reading, teaching residencies, and more. Read more…
By Public Impact, December 18, 2019
With support from the Memphis Education Fund, 12 Memphis schools from several charter organizations will implement Opportunity Culture models in 2020–21 in an effort to improve student achievement by extending the reach of excellent teachers and their teams to more students, for more pay, within schools’ recurring budgets.
Leadership Preparatory, STAR Academy, Compass Community Schools, Frayser Community Schools, and Memphis Scholars will all participate in the cohort. The schools serve student populations that are largely economically disadvantaged and students of color.
By Philip Steffes; first published by EducationNC, December 5, 2019
How can kids learn when they’re not in the classroom? That’s the issue I confronted when I arrived at Albemarle Road Elementary in Charlotte four years ago. Despite teachers who truly cared about their students, we had far too many suspensions. And students were struggling. When I first came here, 95% of our teachers had been in the red — not meeting student growth targets — in literacy for multiple years.
By Sharon Kebschull Barrett, November 27, 2019
A quality teacher in every classroom, and powerful support for alternatively certified teachers: For Jennifer Blaine, those were two key elements that made Opportunity Culture well worth continuing to expand when she took over this spring as superintendent of Spring Branch ISD, located west of downtown Houston, Texas.
With about 35,000 students, the district includes 25 elementary schools, seven traditional middle school campuses, and four traditional high schools; more than half of those now use Opportunity Culture roles since beginning three years ago under Scott Muri, Blaine’s predecessor as superintendent. (Muri is now superintendent of Ector County ISD.)
By Margaret High, November 22, 2019
Congratulations to Vance County Schools Superintendent Anthony Jackson, named the 2020 A. Craig Phillips North Carolina Superintendent of the Year! Jackson, who has led Vance County Schools since 2015, brought Opportunity Culture to the district in 2016–17.
“Dr. Tony Jackson has developed a culture of innovation and excellence at Vance County Schools,” Jack Hoke, executive director of the North Carolina School Superintendent’s Association, said at the awards ceremony Tuesday night.