By Paola Gilliam, June 24, 2019

Congratulations to all educators for completing another great school year or reaching a summer intercession in Opportunity Culture schools! It’s always exciting to watch what schools using Opportunity Culture do to improve schooling for their teachers and students. Here are just a few highlights of Opportunity Culture news and resources from the year.

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How many reached?
New Opportunity Culture Districts
Opportunity Culture Fellows
Remotely Located Multi-Classroom Leadership Pilot
Rethinking Teacher Residencies Using Opportunity Culture
Help for Summer Planning for Principals and Multi-Classroom Leaders
Opportunity Culture in Action

Extending the Reach of Excellent Teaching

In the 2018-19 school year, more than 1,800 teachers received advanced roles or on-the-job development through Opportunity Culture, and more than 56,000 students were reached by at least one Opportunity Culture teacher. As Opportunity Culture continues to spread to more districts and schools, thank you to all Opportunity Culture educators for leading the way in reaching more students with excellent teaching!

New Opportunity Culture Districts

This year, the school districts of Forrest City, Lead Hill, and Lincoln in Arkansas joined the Opportunity Culture initiative. North Carolina added three new districts—Halifax County, Hertford County, and Lexington City Schools. More districts will be formally announced later. Welcome to all these districts!

Opportunity Culture Fellows

We recently announced our newest cohort of Opportunity Culture Fellows. Fellows provide support to their cohort, take one another’s ideas back to their schools, write columns about their experiences, and speak locally and nationally about their Opportunity Culture roles. Their feedback and leadership are invaluable in helping to improve the Opportunity Culture initiative, and all materials related to it. This year’s fellows come from Arizona, Illinois, and four North Carolina school districts, and will join all previous cohorts at a convening in September. Check out the trove of Opportunity Culture Fellows’ columns here.

Remotely Located Multi-Classroom Leadership Pilot

In spring, the College Board and the North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics joined with Public Impact’s Opportunity Culture initiative to test aspects of Remotely Located Multi-Classroom Leadership, with a math teacher from the School of Science and Mathematics leading a team of five precalculus teachers located at four rural schools spread across North Carolina. Midway through the semester, Sharon Kebschull Barrett, vice president of editorial services & communications at Public Impact, checked in to hear early impressions of the pilot’s benefits and challenges in this piece published on EducationNC.

Rethinking Teacher Residencies Using Opportunity Culture

Building on our vision released in 2016 for teacher and principal residencies, we published more detailed materials: a summary of the teacher residency paths, an introductory slide deck, and job descriptions. And don’t miss 3 short videos from educators on the early-career benefits of multi-classroom leader teams and residencies.

Help for Summer Planning for Principals and Multi-Classroom Leaders

Looking for resources you can use for summer planning to start strong with Opportunity Culture next year? The Opportunity Culture website provides an instructional leadership and excellence section to help! Check out other summer planning tools below.

Summer planning tools for multi-classroom leaders:

• Action Planner for MCLs—Summer. (See the yearlong planner for MCLs, to plan ahead.)
• Organizational Chart Template—Multi-Classroom Leader Teams
• MCL Team Meeting Sample Agenda—Data Analysis
• MCL Team Meeting Sample Agenda—Analyzing Student Work
• Curriculum recommendation 1-pager with free and low-cost options linked
• Science of reading summary coming soon—with quick, actionable tips to get it right!

Summer planning tools for principals:

• Action Planner for Principals—Summer. (See the yearlong planner to plan ahead.)
• Organizational Chart Template—Instructional Leadership and Teams
• School Roles and Responsibilities Chart
• Standing Agendas for Leading an Instructional Team of Leaders
• Curriculum recommendation 1-pager with free and low-cost options linked

Don’t miss new short videos—and keep checking back as we continue to post more clips throughout the year! Recent video clips include Opportunity Culture educators talking about difficult conversations, behavior management protocols, behavioral event interviews, and much, much more!

Opportunity Culture in Action

It’s been great to see the ways districts highlight their Opportunity Culture work! Check out some examples below.

• Vance County Schools created a website for information on Opportunity Culture in their district, including videos, frequently asked questions, and an integrated application for Opportunity Culture roles.
• In a series of short videos from Guilford County Schools, Multi-Classroom Leaders Fred Hoffman of Ferndale Middle School (just named as an Opportunity Culture Fellow), Ashley Ekwem-Thorpe of Hairston Middle School, Jessica Grant of Falkener Elementary School, and Mecia Moore of Jackson Middle School discuss the impact their role has on teachers and students.
• In Arizona, the Office of the Maricopa County School Superintendent publishes a regular newsletter that features information on Opportunity Culture in their district.
• Edgecombe County Public Schools publishes a seasonal newsletter that provides updates and information on Opportunity Culture as well as other aspects of Innovation ECPS.