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Career Prep Pathway

Obtain Certified Opportunity Culture™ Career Prep Pathway status for your program

Starting in January 2026, Public Impact will begin conferring Certified Opportunity Culture™ Career Prep Pathway status on educator preparation programs that place paid residents and apprentices, or that provide licensure to new teachers, in schools with Certified Opportunity Culture School® status.

We are excited to recognize programs that place residents, apprentices, and others in schools with Multi-Classroom Leader® teams, which have been proven to significantly increase teacher effectiveness in producing student learning.

Providers, school systems, and schools may use the certification to help attract aspiring educators, and these aspiring educators should share the placements on their resumes to highlight how they learned how to teach on the job from the nation’s best educators!

We are currently gathering interest and then will reach out to districts and ed prep providers in mid-January with more details and a free registration form for our pilot year. We hope to certify the first providers by February 1, 2026, and begin sharing their new status on social media, our website, and eblasts shortly thereafter. We would love for your provider to be part of this inaugural group of career prep pathways with certification!

We will publish free guidance to help ed prep providers craft outstanding residencies, as well, but programs will have significant design flexibility. Recognized programs and pathways will include at least these: registered teacher apprenticeships; residencies for those working toward bachelor’s degrees; education master’s degrees—including MSAs; post-bachelor’s licensure; select internships and fellowships.

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Providers: Fill out the short interest form below to learn more about how to sign up for this free certification, which has a short list of specific, minimal requirements.

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School system leaders: Systems may also earn this status if conferring licensure to teachers on the job, either alone or with a partner higher education institution—fill out the short interest form to learn more.

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Aspiring educators: If you are obtaining a degree or licensure while working in a school with Certified Opportunity Culture School® status, share this webpage with your provider, so we can recognize your on-the-job learning early in 2026!