Opportunity Culture® News and Views
By Paola Gilliam and Sharon Kebschull Barrett, September 14, 2022
After struggling with teacher shortages for years, Ector County Independent School District (ISD) in Odessa, Texas, announced its best recruiting year in over a decade. In an Odessa American article, Superintendent Scott Muri attributed the recruiting success of about 450 teachers to several strategies, including Opportunity Culture implementation and pay raises.
By Public Impact, September 7, 2022
In the annual, anonymous survey given to Opportunity Culture educators, Ross Elementary in Ector County, Texas, received high ratings despite the stress of another Covid year. Susan Hendricks, an Opportunity Culture Fellow who was the school’s principal until she became the district’s director of leadership in August, describes the communication needed to become a committed Opportunity Culture school in the latest Opportunity Culture audio piece.
By Public Impact, August 18, 2022
Welcome to all the new sites and schools beginning to implement their Opportunity Culture designs this fall! Educators at 116 more schools—in both new and established Opportunity Culture sites—are about to see their plans in action. It takes a lot of hard work, deep thinking, and extensive communication to bring these plans to life, and we at Public Impact wish all of you the best! Read the full newsletter here.
By Public Impact, July 15, 2022
Julie Shields has been principal of Bearfield Primary School in Hertford County, North Carolina, since 2003. Just before Covid hit, her school began Opportunity Culture implementation to improve academic outcomes for students and enhance the caring atmosphere of the school.
By Public Impact, May 26, 2022
We send this newsletter today, which has much happy news, as planned because some educators are in their last week of school—but with heavy hearts in the aftermath of shootings in Uvalde, Buffalo, and beyond. Words are always inadequate in the face of these horrors, but we at Public Impact are holding all Opportunity Culture educators in our hearts as you carry the burden of continuing to help your students feel safe while absorbing this grief.
By Sharon Kebschull Barrett, May 26, 2022
The communications team at Public Impact had the pleasure of visiting several districts this spring, for the first time since Covid hit, to interview Opportunity Culture educators and document their great work! We heard about their challenges and successes—what we learn in these interviews informs the guidance and support Public Impact provides to districts—and their opinions of Opportunity Culture roles and implementation.
Watch for stories and video clips highlighting specifics of their implementation and leadership and instructional practices in future months, but for now, here are a few of their thoughts to send us into summer:
By Sharon Kebschull Barrett, May 19, 2022
Opportunity Culture planning and implementation success involves a host of factors, such as strong initial school designs and rigorous selection, accountability, and monitoring processes, but over and over, district leaders repeat two themes that can’t be ignored: the importance of building relationships and maintaining fidelity to the model.
Those themes came up again in April, when two Texas Opportunity Culture districts hosted education leaders interested in using Opportunity Culture designs and teacher residencies in their schools—the first in-person site visit since pre-Covid days. The daylong visit to Midland and Ector County Independent School Districts (ISDs) included an overview of Opportunity Culture implementation, visits to multiple schools to see and hear about the educator roles in action, and a panel discussion with the districts’ Opportunity Culture leaders.
By Sharon Kebschull Barrett, May 18, 2022
When we heard that Anne Claire Tejtel Nornhold, who leads the Opportunity Culture work in Baltimore City Public Schools, would move out of that role this spring, we knew we wanted to capture her reflections on what worked well and advice for other district Opportunity Culture directors.
As Baltimore City’s Opportunity Culture lead, Nornhold focuses on identifying schools that want to use Opportunity Culture staffing models and helping each school design the Opportunity Culture implementation that best fits the school. She oversees the candidate pool that schools draw from to fill their new roles, and the development of the accountability framework for those roles.
By Sharon Kebschull Barrett, May 12, 2022
Eleven school districts and a charter management organization in Texas, North Carolina, Virginia, and Arkansas are the latest to join the national Opportunity Culture initiative, led by Public Impact, which extends the reach of excellent teachers and their teams to more students, for more pay, within recurring budgets. Some sites also include yearlong, paid residencies for aspiring teachers, allowing them to learn on the job in a teaching team led by an excellent teacher. Fifty-five districts and charter school organizations in 10 states now use Opportunity Culture models in their schools, increasing student learning growth and access to small-group tutoring, and creating career paths for teachers and paraprofessionals that let them advance without having to leave the classroom.
By Public Impact, May 12, 2022
As districts seek innovations to bolster student academics and bring support and joy to students and teachers, the Opportunity Culture model continues to spread and produce results, even in another challenging pandemic year.
Each year, Public Impact analyzes Opportunity Culture data to improve its materials and its work with schools and districts. With the overarching goal of reaching all students with high-growth learning, Public Impact has expanded the Opportunity Culture initiative’s participating schools (including those committed to but not yet implementing Opportunity Culture designs) by 50 percent each year, on average—helping schools and districts make changes that educators love, with increased career opportunities and support.