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The Pandemic Closed Our Doors But Opened Our Minds: Why My School District Will Not Return to ‘Normal’

From Ed Surge, December 30, 2020, by Scott Muri

Previously the superintendent of Spring Branch ISD, Scott Muri became the superintendent of Ector County ISD in spring 2019. He implemented Opportunity Culture in both districts.

Educators around the globe knew this school year would be like nothing we had ever experienced. In the face of a worldwide pandemic, how do school districts properly balance the well-founded fears of staff and families with the equally well-founded evidence that children need schools to learn and to grow academically, socially and emotionally? A health crisis running headlong into an education crisis: Welcome to the 2020-2021 school year. Read the full article…

Greater Waco-area draws $2.2 million grant from Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

From KXXV, December 3, 2020, by Garrett Hottle

Greater Waco will be utilizing a $2.2 million grant over three years from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to improve the teacher workforce and the pipeline of qualified teachers in McLennan County.

An Opportunity Culture grant will fund a creative staffing model with a focus on supporting sustainable and affordable residencies for candidates at both the La Vega and Waco ISD school districts. Read the full article…

Cumberland County Schools Joins Forces with Opportunity Culture® to Increase Student Success

From Cumberland County Schools, December 1, 2020

To provide all students with excellent teaching and to help students close achievement gaps and leap ahead, our schools are creating an Opportunity Culture for their teachers and students. Opportunity Culture models enable schools to reach every student with excellent teachers and their teams—consistently—while paying teachers more for their extra responsibilities, and helping all educators improve on the job and work collaboratively. All pay supplements are funded through reallocations of existing budgets–no temporary grants. Read the full press release…

MISD Adds 8 Campuses to Opportunity Culture®

From Midland Independent School District, November 30, 2020

Midland ISD announced today that eight schools will be joining Opportunity Culture for the 2021-22 school year.
Opportunity Culture restructures pre-K–12 school staffing paradigms to extend the reach of excellent teachers, principals and their teams to more students, for more pay, within recurring school budgets. Yearlong, paid residencies make on-the-job learning possible before teaching and leading. The program has two major goals: to reach all students with excellent teachers more consistently, and to reach all educators with outstanding career opportunities. Read the press release…

Eight Ways New Schools Innovate

From Forbes, November 19, 2020, by Tom Vander Ark

The rapid global shift to hybrid and remote learning—with lots of versions and variability—provoked renewed interest in new school models. And, compared to 20 years ago, the invention opportunity is enhanced by the science of learning, broad agreement on the importance of success skills, and better tools.

An innovative approach to the organization of staffing and time comes from schools in the Opportunity Culture network. They share a system of multi-classroom leadership that provides both a talent development ladder and better support for junior teachers. Read the full article…

Rethinking School Staffing

From AEI, October 8, 2020, by Nat Malkus

As schools confront massive budget shortfalls in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, it is critical that they examine how they might use existing funding more efficiently. On this episode of The Report Card, Nat Malkus talks with Bryan Hassel about how districts might rethink their staffing models in a way that will increase students’ access to excellent teachers and create opportunities for advancement within the teaching profession, all without spending more money. Byran is the co-president of Public Impact and a contributor to the newly released volume, Getting the Most Bang for the Education Buck. Listen to the podcast…

Tracking fall reopening plans for all North Carolina districts: New database from EdNC and Public Impact®

From EdNC, October 7, 2020, by Beth Clifford, David Gilmore, Cole Smith, Preston Faulk and Molly Osborne

Since the COVID-19 pandemic upended life as we knew it in March, North Carolina school districts have had to rethink how they deliver education. After transitioning online in the spring, districts could choose between a hybrid model with limited face-to-face instruction (plan B) and 100% virtual instruction (plan C) for the start of the 2020-21 school year this fall. Read the full article…

Report: Pandemic could spur new school staffing approaches

From Education Dive, September 28, 2020, by Kara Arundel

Overnight, it seemed, some teachers’ roles changed from being leaders in their classrooms to including broader responsibilities as mentors and coaches to other teachers, curriculum designers, technology facilitators, data coaches and assessment designers. What if that were the norm, asks the AIR paper.

One approach suggested by AIR, and developed by consulting group Public Impact, is the Opportunity Culture initiative. In this structure, an experienced and effective teacher leads a small, collaborative team of teachers in the same grade or subject. The multi-classroom leaders use student data to help the team of teachers prepare for instruction, evaluate each student’s educational progress and make adjustments where needed. Read the article…

ECISD, MISD starting their second year of Opportunity Culture®

From News West9, September 22, 2020, by Rachel Ripp

Teachers have a lot on their plates this year, more than ever. But some of them here in the Basin have signed up for a brand new teaching landscape plus more students to teach or co-workers to coach. These teachers are involved in what’s called “Opportunity Culture” at ECISD and MISD.

“We also saw this as a way to keep good teachers in the classroom. I think a lot of teachers get tempted at a point to say I want to go into administration or I want to try and be a principal or I want to do something else other than teach and they’re great teachers. We don’t want to lose that. We want to keep them here, and by paying them what they’re worth I think that that helps keep them in the classroom,” Chris Hightower, MISD Opportunity Culture director said. Read more…

Will Learning Pods Be Only for the Rich?

From Education Week, August 25, 2020, by Bryan C. Hassel and Sharon Kebschull Barrett

To exhausted or worried parents deciding whether to send their children into school buildings this fall, “pandemic pods” may look like an appealing way out. Keeping their boys and girls at home learning alone may be better for physical health but not for mental health, and the arrangement is difficult or impossible for many employed parents. Equally undesirable is the greater risk of children catching and spreading a potentially deadly disease from a larger number of people at school.

Some parents are creating home-based, closed groups of a few families’ children to learn together under the rotating supervision of parents or a paid supervisor. Pods could keep students’ learning and social-emotional development on track while helping protect their and their teachers’ health. Read more…