Public Impact

How can innovative staffing help reduce staffing shortages and boost learning? Public Impact’s latest brief explains how the Opportunity Culture initiative uses innovative staffing designs to create new career options for educators, increase collaboration and support, and incorporate high-impact tutoring for all students into the school day—within regular budgets.

The December newsletter includes a new Opportunity Culture audio, video, and blog. It also includes a prompt for Opportunity Culture principals, winter resources, and media highlights.

As a temporary solution to a shortage of paraprofessional reach associates who can provide release time, Multi-Classroom Leader® Sunil Dutt combines one of his math blocks with that of a new teacher into one large group meeting in the library, so that Dutt can co-teach and model instruction.

Lucama Elementary, a rural, Title I school in Wilson County, North Carolina, implemented several Opportunity Culture roles in 2021–22. Following a focus on data-driven, small-group tutoring, instruction based on the science of reading, and greater educator collaboration through Multi-Classroom Leader® teams, the school dramatically increased student learning growth. Principal April Shackleford and Lucama educators explain their success, and why it led them in 2022 to expand to schoolwide Opportunity Culture roles in the latest Opportunity Culture audio piece.

The October newsletter includes how to use Opportunity Culture models to respond to NAEP results, a new video and blogs, Opportunity Culture news, and more.

The NAEP results released this week may feel deeply discouraging—if not surprising—to weary educators. But Opportunity Culture research points to sustainable, scalable ways to improve student learning—and at Public Impact, we see ways to improve learning well beyond those initial research findings. This is the moment for Opportunity Culture schools and districts—and those considering using Opportunity Culture models—to rapidly reach as many students as possible and maximize the innovative staffing of Opportunity Culture teams to dramatically boost student results.

Check out our latest short videos, showing how Opportunity Culture residencies help schools create teacher pipelines and increase student support, and how one school’s building design enhances team collaboration.

The September newsletter includes new Opportunity Culture audio and video posts, tools and resources, a video playlist, Opportunity Culture news, and more.

In the annual, anonymous survey given to Opportunity Culture educators, Ross Elementary in Ector County, Texas, received high ratings despite the stress of another Covid year. Susan Hendricks, an Opportunity Culture Fellow who was the school’s principal until she became the district’s director of leadership in August, describes the communication needed to become a committed Opportunity Culture school in the latest Opportunity Culture audio piece.

Welcome to all the new sites and schools beginning to implement their Opportunity Culture designs this fall! Educators at 116 more schools—in both new and established Opportunity Culture sites—are about to see their plans in action. It takes a lot of hard work, deep thinking, and extensive communication to bring these plans to life, and we at Public Impact wish all of you the best! Read the full newsletter here.