Beverley Tyndall

Tips to Grow On: Leadership and Team Support

What tips do educators at Aycock Elementary in Vance County, N.C., have for maintaining Opportunity Culture® staffing models—so both students and teachers can thrive? Provide Strong Leadership Support and Trust the Power of Multi-Classroom Leader® Teams.

Summer Professional Learning 2024

Dreaming about summer’s warmth in January? We are, too—and we’re dreaming about the great sessions we have planned for summer professional learning! We’ll soon be announcing this summer’s theme, but no need to wait—get a taste of the fun and inspiration of last summer’s sessions in this short video, and register today!

#13. A Superintendent’s View: Go All-In with Opportunity Culture® Teams, Small-Group

Viewing Opportunity Culture® implementation as a single, cost-neutral solution for multiple issues—student outcomes and educator career paths and satisfaction—Winchester Public Schools Superintendent Jason van Heukelum discusses why the district “jumped all in” and how that’s working out, with strong learning growth results.

Fort Worth ISD needs to improve. Could this plan help teachers step up their game?

From Fort Worth Star-Telegram, by Silas Allen, November 4, 2024

As officials in the Fort Worth Independent School District look for ways to improve academic progress, they’re pinning hopes on a new staffing model designed to ensure that more kids get a high-quality teacher.

The model, called Opportunity Culture, is based on the idea of having a few highly effective teachers spend part of the day acting as coaches and mentors for other educators in their building. The district is piloting the model at three campuses this year, with plans to expand if it’s successful.

Although Fort Worth ISD leaders say it’s too early to say how the program is going here, education researchers say it’s shown promise elsewhere.

Read the full article here…

Your New Tool to Reach All Students: Meet the New Opportunity Culture® Portal

Watch this demo of the portal’s features that help you scale up school staffing design and strengthen implementation. Our team members will walk you through the various “rooms” of the portal to help you envision how this tool reduces capacity challenges that might be hampering your district’s effort to reach all students with excellent instruction.

How Team-Based Teaching Can Support Student Learning and Reduce Teacher Burnout

From The 74 Million, By Chad Aldeman September 24, 2024

Schools have been dealing with a number of unique challenges over the last few years. Labor shortages. Low morale. Declining student enrollment. Meanwhile, they’re trying to re-engage students and get them back on track academically.

If I told you there was one education reform that had the potential to address all these problems at once, you might think I was crazy. But shifting away from the one-classroom, one-teacher model in favor of a team-based approach, with different roles and responsibilities for various team members, has all these benefits and more. 

How can schools realize this potential? To find out, I spoke with leaders of three team-based teaching models — Kristan Van Hook from the Teacher Advancement Program (TAP), Bryan Hassel from Opportunity Culture and Brent Maddin from Arizona State University’s Next Education Workforce. Collectively, they have helped hundreds of schools transition away from one-classroom, one-teacher staffing plans.

Read the full article here…

Meet the CMS school ‘making dreams come true’ — and surging up NC’s rating system

From The Charlotte Observer, by Rebecca Noel September 16, 2024

Note: this article includes an interview with Stevie Roper, a multi-classroom leader educator. To hear more from Ms. Roper, see here.

There are some descriptors you might expect when you ask teachers what it’s like to work at their school. “It’s like Disney World,” probably isn’t one of them. LaToya Wright, assistant principal at Paw Creek Elementary School in northwest Charlotte, says it really is the most magical place on earth.

“You can sit in a class and see a light bulb come on for a child you’ve been working with right in front of you,” she said. “Seeing them grow… we really are making dreams come true.” It also has its fair share of characters, Wright says. Though they’re typically not in costume.

The school is a feather in CMS’ cap when it comes to accountability grades from the state this year. Paw Creek Elementary climbed two letter grades over two years in the State Department of Public Instruction’s accountability ratings — from a D grade in 2022 following the pandemic to a B for 2024. It’s on target to achieve an A rating in student math proficiency by next year. The school also received a score of 100 for learning growth in 2024, the highest score possible. It ranked first in CMS for growth and in the top 1% of schools in the state for growth in 2023.

Read the full article here…

Which School Districts Do the Best Job of Teaching Kids to Read?

From The 74, by Chad Aldeman, September 10, 2024

In this interactive article, The 74 calculated school districts’ expected reading proficiency rates, based on their local poverty rates, and compared that to their actual third grade reading scores to identify districts that are beating the odds and successfully teaching kids to read.  One of those districts in North Carolina is Wilson County Schools, which began using Opportunity Culture® roles in 2021–22. Learn more here and here.

Read the article from The 74 here…

September 2024 Newsletter: Supports for Educators! Webinars, New Portal; Teacher Survey Results

This jam-packed, back-to-school edition of our newsletter highlights the new Opportunity Culture® portal, our online platform that supports educators with professional learning modules and instructional and leadership resources—all in one place! The September 4 newsletter also features free webinars and other events, a look at educator survey results, and news and social media highlights from districts across the country using Opportunity Culture® models. Read the newsletter here!