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N.C. Districts—Including 5 Largest—Lead Nation in New Opportunity Culture Certification

October 9, 2024

October 10, 2024, CHAPEL HILL, N.C.— Fifteen North Carolina school systems, including the state’s five largest districts—Wake, Charlotte-Mecklenburg, Guilford, Winston-Salem-Forsyth, and Cumberland—are leading the first wave of schools nationally to receive Certified Opportunity Culture Schools™ status. 

The schools earning this designation have implemented innovative models that extend the reach of excellent teachers and the small teams they lead to more students, for more pay, within regular school budgets. Certified schools have taken steps toward meeting standards correlated with student learning growth.

Third-party studies, including one focused on Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools (CMS), have shown that Opportunity Culture® models boost student learning an extra half-year annually, on average. Recent data support these findings.

Read the full press release…

October 2024 Newsletter: Is Your School on the List?

October 1, 2024

Congratulations to the 366 schools in eight states have been awarded the new designation of Certified Opportunity Culture School™, Provisional Level, 2023–24! See the complete list of all newly certified schools in Arkansas, California, Louisiana, Maryland, New Mexico, North Carolina, Texas, and Virginia here. Plus read about a low-cost route to strategic staffing, more on-demand PD, and free webinars, tools, news you can use and more—all in the October 2024 edition of our newsletter here!

366 Schools Awarded Certified Opportunity Culture School Designation

October 1, 2024

October 1, 2024, CHAPEL HILL, N.C.—Showing their commitment to reaching all students with excellent teaching, consistently, and all educators with excellent, paid career opportunities, 366 schools in eight states have been awarded the new Certified Opportunity Culture School™ designation. Districts using Opportunity Culture® strategic staffing designs implement innovative models that extend the reach of excellent teachers and the small teams they lead to more students, for more pay, within regular school budgets.

Third-party studies have shown that Opportunity Culture models boost student learning an extra half-year annually, on average. They retain effective teachers and pay many team positions more, giving educators support, collaboration and career opportunities. The latest annual, anonymous survey of educators in all schools using Opportunity Culture models shows nearly unanimous support for their school’s implementation, with 99% of educators in the Multi-Classroom Leader™ role and 91% of educators in all Opportunity Culture roles agreeing that they want it to continue in their school.

With Opportunity Culture certification and validation, schools and districts can attract applicants looking for support and career paths, and reassure parents, their community, state and funders that they are using models that increase student learning. Certification levels convey strength of implementation in key areas, including selectivity of Opportunity Culture roles, student access to instruction led by Opportunity Culture teams, incorporation of small-group, high-dosage tutoring into staffing plans and financial sustainability of staffing plans.

The newly certified schools are all at the “provisional” level reflecting their 2023–24 school year, and they can attain higher certification levels for the current school year and beyond. Twenty-eight districts total in Arkansas, California, Louisiana, Maryland, New Mexico, North Carolina, Texas and Virginia now have certified schools.

Read the full press release here…

Certification is a Road Map for Schools

September 23, 2024

The certification and validation processes help schools and districts understand what quality Opportunity Culture® implementation looks like, and provides reassurance to students’ parents and caregivers.

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

September 4, 2024

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!

July 2024 Newsletter: Launching a New School Year

July 31, 2024

As summer winds down, we have resources to help you wind up for the new year, including the final session of a three-part webinar series, focuses on some of the most important elements to launch the new year for student success. The July newsletter also features highlights from our summer professional learning sessions and tools for launching and leading your team or planning ahead for great instruction—along with news and featured social media posts. Read more here!

New on EdNC.org from Public Impact: Creating a Tutoring Culture

July 8, 2024

Educators and policymakers continue to worry about permanent learning shortfalls post-Covid—both for individual students and the societal implications, including to the U.S. economy. In North Carolina, efforts to spread high-dosage tutoring help, but still reach a fraction of students. But North Carolina districts and schools using strategic staffing models point the way to getting students the amount of tutoring proven to dramatically increase learning—during school, within regular budgets, for all students, and with even more tutoring time for the students furthest behind.

Creating a ‘tutoring culture’ — for all, by all

July 8, 2024

From EdNC, by Emily Ayscue Hassel and Bryan C. Hassel, July 8, 2024

Every year, hundreds of billions of dollars will evaporate from the U.S. economy due to permanent learning shortfalls post-COVID, by McKinsey’s calculation.

Research has shown high-dosage tutoring is crucial to addressing these shortfalls. In effective high-dosage tutoring, tutors provide students with at least 90 minutes of tutoring per week, aligned with the school’s curricula, in small groups based on their learning data, to build relationships and meet students’ instructional needs. Tutors grow their knowledge and skills through professional development and coaching.

But far too few students in North Carolina get this sort of tutoring.

Is there a way to get tutoring to everyone without increasing costs? Yes, by engaging all available adults to create a “tutoring culture”– for all, by all.

Read the full post here….

Prep for the Testing Homestretch: Using Data-Driven Goals

March 14, 2024

As schools prepare for end-of-year testing, how can teachers and teaching team leaders use data to motivate students and teachers and celebrate learning growth? This 45-minute webinar was led by Erin Burns Mehigan, a former teacher-leader accountable for the learning results of the 500 students taught by her high school biology team, which produced dramatic leaps in learning growth and proficiency. She is joined by special guest Stevie Roper, leader of an elementary teaching team in a Charlotte-Mecklenburg Title I school that ranked 25th in all of North Carolina for student learning growth, and had the highest proficiency growth among all the district’s elementary schools. Mehigan presents several proven data-based strategies to prepare for the testing homestretch and discusses with Roper what she has used for success—and provides tips teachers can use any time of the year.