The Opportunity Culture® Strategy
Looking for a high-impact, sustainable, cost-effective, proven way to give all students access to excellent teaching and all educators access to outstanding career opportunities?
Our innovative school staffing and instructional design helps pre-K–12 districts and schools restructure to extend the reach of excellent teaching to more students, for more pay, within recurring school budgets—backed up by over a dozen years of student learning growth and educator-pleasing results!
Learn More
For a general overview of the Opportunity Culture® initiative, register for our free, 45-minute session, Opportunity Culture® Info Session: Unique, Effective Staffing Design.
How Opportunity Culture® Design Works
In each school using Opportunity Culture®staffing and instructional design:
A group of teachers and administrators determines how to use the Multi-Classroom Leader® role and other teaching team roles to reach all students with excellent teaching and small-group instruction and pay teachers more. Schools use highly customizable designs based on a proven framework.
Each Multi-Classroom Leader® educator leads a small teaching team to instructional excellence, providing guidance and frequent on-the-job coaching while continuing to teach, often by leading small-group instruction. Research shows that when teachers increase small-group teaching and tutoring, student learning surges.
Accountable for the results of all students in the team, these team leaders earn supplements averaging 20 percent (and up to 50 percent) of teacher pay, within the regular school budget.
In the majority of schools, some teaching team members serve in the Team Reach Teacher™ and Reach Associate™ roles, reaching more students, for more pay, with increased small-group learning, all with the team leader’s guidance and support.
Schools redesign schedules to provide additional school-day time for teacher planning, coaching, and collaboration.
With those elements in place, schools can add elements such as yearlong, paid teacher residencies, remotely located team leader roles to increase student access to excellent teaching, and the Multi-School Leader™ role.
These leadership and paid team roles have been shown to more than double the number of teachers producing high-growth student learning. Students gain an extra two to seven months of learning each year—equaling an extra half-year of growth, on average, according to third-party research.
To support better results, the Opportunity Culture® initiative includes certification standards based on 12+ years of research and data, to guide district and school design and implementation decisions.
The standards highlight practices correlated with higher-growth student learning and stronger educator satisfaction in schools using Opportunity Culture® designs.
Nationally, schools that have received Certified Opportunity Culture School® status proved two to three times more likely to have high learning growth schoolwide than schools not following the standards.
The Opportunity Culture® Principles
Teams of teachers & school leaders must choose and tailor models to:
Reach more students with excellent teachers and their teams
Pay teachers more for extending their reach
Fund pay within regular budgets
Provide protected in-school time and clarity about how to use it for planning, collaboration, and development
Match authority and accountability to each person’s responsibilities
Similar principles apply to teams of principals and district/network leaders
I definitely say, “It’s something that any district should do.”
—North Carolina superintendent
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Why Districts Use Opportunity Culture® Staffing and Instructional Design
Districts join this national initiative to address student learning growth that is too low, especially in high-need schools, and to address staffing shortages that have grown to affect many schools.
These innovative staffing designs address shortages and boost learning. Innovative staffing means thinking differently about instructional roles and available funding to improve academics, creating new career options for teachers and addressing persistent teaching vacancies.
Schools gain new tools that include high-paying advanced team roles, improved support for new teachers, and staffing designs that do not require filling every teacher vacancy to ensure that students have access to excellent instruction.
See some of the education research groups, advocacy organizations, and federal and state offices that recommend Opportunity Culture® design as a strategy to consider.
How Opportunity Culture® Design Helps Address Challenges
Staffing Shortages
Staffing shortages have plagued some schools for decades. Our staffing designs provide a solution that shifts schools out of emergency hiring mode—and boosts learning. Learn how they address staffing shortages—with high-paying advanced roles, improved support for new teachers, and staffing models that do not require filling every teacher vacancy to ensure that students have access to excellent instruction.
Small-Group Tutoring
Maximize the research-proven power of tutoring through Multi-Classroom Leader® teams. These teams, with a proven, accountable team leader—paired with rotational scheduling often used in our models—make it possible for schools to scale up effective small-group tutoring by paraprofessionals and team teachers, helping to reach all students with personalized attention. Our SIMPLE-TC™ professional learning series on creating a tutoring culture can help.
Paid Teacher Residencies
Schools can build better teacher pipelines through yearlong, sustainably paid teacher residencies on Multi-Classroom Leader® teams. Residents play critical roles for students and teachers while learning teaching skills from the excellent team leader and team teachers. Paid residencies also address the need for teacher candidates to earn income while obtaining degrees, lowering the barriers to entering the profession.
Hear what past and present district leaders have to say about using Opportunity Culture® design:
“We see this as a strategic opportunity to change teaching and learning in our schools."
—North Carolina 2020 Superintendent of the Year Anthony Jackson
"Is [implementation of these models] the right thing to do for our kids? When we look at our data, we know it is."
—North Carolina 2022 Superintendent of the Year Valerie Bridges
“We have ... folks that are coming from other districts because of this opportunity—and then our own people, certainly it retains them as teachers.”
—Texas Region 18 Superintendent of the Year Scott Muri
“Anything we can do to bring new and exciting ideas in teacher training is welcomed in Aldine ISD, and we are honored to be one of seven school districts in Texas selected for this prestigious teacher training program.”
—K–12 Dive Superintendent of the Year LaTonya Goffney
How We Work with Districts
We offer several price points for districts. Find more information on funding sources for making the transition.
Intensive Co-Design™
Best for districts that need full consulting support to manage change and co-design Opportunity Culture® plans with us
Focused Co-Design™
Best for districts with capacity to manage change but needing technical guidance—optional add-on supports available
Self-Driven Design™
Best for districts that can manage their own design and implementation in the Opportunity Culture® portal
Virtual Workshops
Best for districts that can commit to an expedited timeline, and would like technical guidance
All design packages include the option for official Opportunity Culture® certification.
By the Numbers
We track the growth of the Opportunity Culture® initiative on our stats page, where you can see current statistics for participating schools and districts, the effects on students, and the extra pay earned since 2013.
Innovation continues as we expand the higher-paid roles on teaching teams; begin to help systems implement the Multi-School Leadership™ model and a model for remotely located team leaders; continue to help systems embed a tutoring culture; provide lower-cost design, implementation, and professional learning services to schools, especially through the Opportunity Culture® portal; and continue to reach more students and states with excellent teaching.
The partnership has been great…Our work with Public Impact has just been phenomenal—…The resources that they have provided for our team have just been out of this world, and I applaud and appreciate just the intentionality of the process, because I think it’s helped us move a lot faster than we would have.
—North Carolina superintendent
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