When Dr. Tina Lupton and Dr. Timisha Barnes-Jones joined the Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools, Opportunity Culture implementation was happening in the midst of Covid. Lupton, the executive director of professional learning, and Barnes-Jones, the area superintendent for a network of 15 transformation schools, used their experience in other Opportunity Culture districts to help the schools make some adjustments. By the following year, three of those Opportunity Culture schools came off North Carolina’s “low-performing” list; nine of the 11 schools implementing Opportunity Culture models either met or exceeded the bar set by the state for expected student learning growth—results they attribute in part to these models.
Lupton, who had worked closely with the Opportunity Culture director in neighboring Guilford County, and Barnes-Jones, who had been principal at West Charlotte High School when it became one of the first Opportunity Culture schools in the country, collaborate to ensure that Opportunity Culture understanding and support exist at all levels—bringing together multiple district offices such as human resources and finance, communicating with all area superintendents about Opportunity Culture implementation, and laying the foundation to spread Opportunity Culture models throughout the district. View our package of pieces that highlight their district-level work and the stories of two of the Opportunity Culture schools here.