Opportunity Culture® Cohorts and Collaboration: EdNC Op-Eds

by | March 21, 2025

Thanks to EdNC.org this week for publishing two op-eds by the leaders of The Innovation Project (TIP) and Public Impact, focused on exciting district strategic staffing collaboration in North Carolina.

Photo courtesy of The Innovation Project
Photo courtesy of The Innovation Project

For collaborating districts, cohorts have power to address teacher shortages, student outcomes: No school wants to gamble with their students’ futures, wrote TIP CEO Sharon Contreras and Public Impact Co-President Bryan Hassel. But when teacher shortages loom, schools trying to attract enough great teachers can feel like they’ve been dealt a losing hand. Read how a cohort of five districts–Wake, Rockingham, Edgecombe, Elizabeth City, and Rowan-Salisbury–joined forces to plan team roles that extend the reach of excellent teaching, pay educators more, and improve student outcomes.

“We believe these districts can serve as exemplars for cross-site collaboration across North Carolina, driving innovation, cost savings, talent sharing, and learning results while addressing staffing shortages too,” Contreras and Hassel wrote. 

With pioneering collaboration, districts share excellent educators: What if a great teaching team leader took on two more team teachers — who just happened to be nearly three hours and six districts away? That’s what happened when the Edgecombe and Rockingham districts collaborated–showing how this can work with a team leader who could be down the street or several states away. Learn how this “remotely located” role can help districts expand the reach of excellent teachers: “we’re moving far beyond just breaking free of one-teacher, one-classroom limitations,” Hassel and Contreras wrote.

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