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Opportunity Culture® News and Views

How Opportunity Culture® Redesigns Help Address Teacher Shortages

by | April 7, 2022

By Public Impact, April 7, 2022

What if you could improve student outcomes even in a time of rising teacher shortages?

Many schools and districts report feeling stuck on the hamster wheel of trying to fill all their open positions. This struggle has been worsening for years. According to one report, the share of schools that tried to fill a vacancy but couldn’t tripled from 2011 to 2016, from 3.1 percent to 9.4 percent, and the share of schools that reported that it was “very difficult” to fill a vacancy nearly doubled, from 19.7 percent to 36.2 percent. Those vacancies directly harm students’ learning.

What could take weary principals out of chronic emergency hiring mode? A chance to rethink staffing to give students excellent instruction using the number of adults a school has. Read More…

Teacher-Assistant Partnership Helps Students Grow

by | March 29, 2022

By Sharon Kebschull Barrett, March 28, 2022

In August 2021, Angela Caldwell, an Opportunity Culture expanded-impact kindergarten teacher at Montlieu Academy of Technology in Guilford County, North Carolina, found herself unexpectedly on her own with a classroom of 22 students, after her teaching assistant left just as the school year began.

So she felt relief that fall when interviewing Lora Terry, who had worked for many years in day care settings. The two clicked, Caldwell said, with Terry making it very clear what she would need to do the job of an assistant well—clear expectations, communication, and clarification. Read More…

Watch: Trends in the Teacher Workforce Webinar

by | March 18, 2022

By Public Impact, March 17, 2022

A recording of February’s “Trends in the Teacher Workforce” webinar, featuring a panel discussion moderated by Public Impact’s Alison Harris Welcher, is available now; click here to watch it and read EdNC’s report on the event, hosted by The Belk Foundation.

The panelists discussed strategies for recruiting and retaining teachers in North Carolina, including teacher residencies.

That’s a strategy that multiple Opportunity Culture school districts in Texas now use. Unlike traditional student-teacher roles, Opportunity Culture residencies are yearlong, paid positions on teaching teams led by multi-classroom leaders.

2 Opportunity Culture® Educators Among 9 Regional N.C. Principals of the Year

by | February 28, 2022

By Sharon Kebschull Barrett, February 28, 2022

Congratulations to KaTrinka Brown, Piedmont-Triad Region Principal of the Year, and Larenda Denien, Southwest Region Principal of the Year! The awards place Brown and Denien in the running for North Carolina Principal of the Year, announced in May.

I spoke to both principals recently, and as you’ll read in spotlights of each, a common theme in their leadership success quickly emerged: the power of relationships.

An Opportunity Culture® Principal Reflects

by | February 25, 2022

By Sharon Kebschull Barrett, February 25, 2022

Kicking off the new “Opportunity Culture Audio” pieces that we’ll begin sharing from time to time this year, our first piece highlights Jenny O’Meara, who until 2021 served as a principal for a middle school using Opportunity Culture roles.

O’Meara, who was an Opportunity Culture Fellow in 2019–20, worked in Edgecombe County Public Schools in a rural part of North Carolina, which has taken its Opportunity Culture implementation district-wide. After stepping away from her principalship, she sat for an interview about her Opportunity Culture experience, including reflections on working with her school’s first multi-classroom leader, or MCL, and valuable lessons to share with current principals.

Resetting Teaching: Mitigating the Great Resignation

by | February 14, 2022

By Sharon Kebschull Barrett, February 14, 2022

Making sense of the conflicting reports about teacher shortages and resignations may take many more months, but CNET took a solid look in The Great Resignation Hasn’t Hit School Teachers Yet. Here’s Why It Still Might. It highlights Public Impact’s Opportunity Culture initiative as one approach to “bringing a reset to the role of teachers,” and quotes Anne Claire Tejtel Nornhold, who leads Opportunity Culture work in Baltimore City Public Schools.