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Teacher-Assistant Partnership Helps Students Grow

March 29, 2022

By Sharon Kebschull Barrett, March 28, 2022

In August 2021, Angela Caldwell, an Opportunity Culture expanded-impact kindergarten teacher at Montlieu Academy of Technology in Guilford County, North Carolina, found herself unexpectedly on her own with a classroom of 22 students, after her teaching assistant left just as the school year began.

So she felt relief that fall when interviewing Lora Terry, who had worked for many years in day care settings. The two clicked, Caldwell said, with Terry making it very clear what she would need to do the job of an assistant well—clear expectations, communication, and clarification. Read More…

Harness the Power of Small-Group Tutoring with Opportunity Culture® Staffing

January 27, 2022

By Public Impact, January 27, 2022

We, like Opportunity Culture educators, believe that students can make dramatically more learning growth than they typically do—with the right instructional approaches and adult support. So we continuously look for new, research-based ways to achieve this vision.

Personalize learning for educators, not just students

May 21, 2021

By Casey Jackson, first published by EdNC, May 18, 2021

“Can you please be my coach?”

With tears rolling down her cheeks, this was what a young, second-year teacher asked me in the middle of a professional development session in 2018.

I was sitting at a table with new faces, in a new state, in a new role as a multi-classroom leader (MCL) in Vance County, North Carolina. The session presenter had asked us to role-play a guided-reading lesson, and this young woman had bravely volunteered to play the role of teacher. As the others played the students, I played the teacher’s coach. Although I had some administrative experience helping teachers, I had not yet gone through MCL training to learn how to appropriately coach the teaching team I would lead. Read more…

The Support Baltimore Teachers Deserve—Now and Post-Pandemic

May 4, 2021

By Sidney Thomas, first published by The Baltimore Times, April 30, 2021

A tweet I saw asking teachers to share one book they would recommend for new teachers jolted me back to my first year of teaching in 2008. My school gave me a copy of The First Days of School: How to Be an Effective Teacher by Harry and Rosemary Wong, told me to read it, and then released me into the classroom to figure out how to be an effective teacher.

The book was my only “support” that year. Whenever I asked for additional help to become a better teacher, I was told to go back to that book. Yet, even after rereading it, I still struggled. Read more…

Will Learning Pods Be Only for the Rich?

September 1, 2020

By Bryan C. Hassel and Sharon Kebschull Barrett, first published in Education Week, August 25, 2020

To exhausted or worried parents deciding whether to send their children into school buildings this fall, “pandemic pods” may look like an appealing way out. Keeping their boys and girls at home learning alone may be better for physical health but not for mental health, and the arrangement is difficult or impossible for many employed parents. Equally undesirable is the greater risk of children catching and spreading a potentially deadly disease from a larger number of people at school.

Some parents are creating home-based, closed groups of a few families’ children to learn together under the rotating supervision of parents or a paid supervisor. Pods could keep students’ learning and social-emotional development on track while helping protect their and their teachers’ health. Read more…

From Action Plan to Teacher of the Year—in One Year

November 9, 2017

By Staci Bunn; first published by EducationNC, November 9, 2017

“You didn’t give up. And you listened a lot—you understood where I was coming from.” Multi-Classroom Leader® Stacie Bunn interviews her team teacher, Expanded-Impact Teacher Kenyetta Davenport, about how Bunn’s support helped her zoom from being put on an action plan to becoming teacher of the year. Read More…