Opportunity Culture® Audio

When Rockingham County Schools, a rural North Carolina district, needed a teaching team leader with a record of high-growth learning for high school math, it faced a dilemma many rural areas confront: no candidate with that record of learning growth who was also ready to lead adults. The Remotely Located Multi-Classroom Leader^® role came to the rescue. Public Impact^® designed this MCL™ role to allow a team leader in another school down the street or across the state or country to remotely lead a teaching team. So the Rockingham and Edgecombe County districts joined forces, with a proven Edgecombe County team leader taking on a two-person math team in Rockingham as well, providing coaching and guidance to quickly improve instruction for a first-year teacher and a veteran teacher who had not previously taught high school.

In recent months, both Mississippi First and Teach Plus Mississippi have issued reports advocating for bold legislative action that would fund staffing redesign pilots, and they highlighted Opportunity Culture^® design. In this audio piece, hear from the leaders of both groups and a Teach Plus Mississippi policy fellow about the dire need they hear from teachers throughout the state to ease the conditions leading to burnout and to great teachers leaving the profession altogether—and their hopes for how things could change for teachers, students, and parents if schools start using the teaching teams proven to support teachers and increase student learning.

At Jackson Public Schools in Mississippi, Deputy Superintendent Michael Cormack brought big changes to student outcomes—no surprise after his leadership of the Barksdale Reading Institute, which sparked the state’s stunning literacy turnaround. Under Cormack, Jackson’s state accountability rating went from an F to a C, and he kicked off an initiative to boost the percentage of third graders who passed the state assessment on the first try from 55 to 75%.

Chatham County Superintendent Anthony Jackson, named as the 2020 North Carolina Superintendent of the Year while serving as superintendent of Vance County Schools, says districts—especially rural systems—can do far more if they focus investments on the capacity of their staff. A self-proclaimed “disciple” of the Opportunity Culture^® initiative, he has led both districts to take calculated risks leading to strong learning outcomes for students. 

For Charlotte-Mecklenburg Superintendent Crystal Hill, leading 185 schools and 141,000 students, success means providing deep support for a staff that now sees 60 percent of its teachers coming from a non-traditional background. The district, a pioneer in piloting Opportunity Culture^® team teaching models and in quickly scaling up to many more schools, posted dramatic learning growth results in 2024–24. What has it taken to get there, and how will the district try to sustain those results? Dr. Hill shares her thoughts with host Sharon Kebschull Barrett and Public Impact^® Co-President Bryan Hassel.

When Carlsbad Municipal Schools Superintendent Gerry Washburn joined the district, it was facing high teacher vacancies and low student success—and a lot of low morale. A chance conversation with Ector County, Texas, Superintendent Scott Muri showed Washburn a new option—Opportunity Culture^® school redesign. With inclusive leadership and a determination to get design and implementation of new staffing roles right, plus a strong district team and principals, Washburn saw schools begin to soar and lead the state: “I’ve been stunned at the acceleration that we’re seeing.”

When schools and districts begin using Multi-Classroom Leader^® teams, should they wade in, or dive in? Hear what district leaders have said over the past decade on how best to improve student learning growth and teacher careers.

Superintendents, district leaders, principals, and team leaders from North Carolina’s Wilson County, Hertford County, and Winston-Salem/Forsyth County districts, as well as Winchester, Virginia, and Ector County and Midland districts in Texas—several of whom have Opportunity Culture^® experience in multiple districts—discuss what worked for them.