It’s a Certified Opportunity Culture School® bonanza! Congratulations to the 38 systems and more than 460 schools that received Certified Opportunity Culture School® status for 2025–26.
Getting certified isn’t a box-checking exercise in compliance; it’s a top way for schools to check reality vs. goals and see where they can improve. Committed to student and educator success, all the schools that earned certified status followed design standards correlated with strong results.
Higher certification levels equal more students reached with excellent teaching and increased small-group tutoring, and more educators reached with support and higher pay—all backed by more than a dozen years of data. Schools meeting the standards and obtaining certified status were two to three times more likely to exceed learning growth expectations schoolwide than schools not using Opportunity Culture® staffing and instructional design.
Certification levels convey strength of implementation in key areas—such as hiring selectivity, student access to instruction from Opportunity Culture® teaching teams, incorporation of small-group, high-dosage tutoring into schedules, and financial sustainability of higher pay—reassuring applicants looking for support and career paths and parents looking for strong instruction and teaching teams.
Many schools reached level 2, and special congratulations to Ross Elementary in Ector County ISD in Texas–the first school nationally to reach level 3! You can learn more about the school’s early days of implementation at the links below.
See all the certified schools at our Certified Schools webpage.