By Public Impact, August 26, 2021
Are your back-to-school emotions at a high pitch this year—a mix of hope and joy and concern? This month’s newsletter provides resources that may help soothe some concerns and set you up for success with your teaching teams and students—plus news about Opportunity Culture districts and a feature on a multi-classroom leader who had the opportunity to meet with U.S. Secretary of Education Cardona. What would you share with Cardona if you had the chance? Tell me—and let me know what helped in this newsletter, and what you need in future editions. Meanwhile, please share this with your colleagues so they can sign up for future newsletters!
What’s Happening
Opportunity Culture® News and Views
Welcome New Fellows; Connect with OC Educators! June Opportunity Culture® Newsletter
By Public Impact, June 17, 2021
Welcome to the 2021–22 Opportunity Culture Fellows! Public Impact announces with pleasure our seventh cohort of Opportunity Culture Fellows. This year’s eight fellows are all Opportunity Culture principals who have achieved strong results and been leaders in their schools and districts. Read the full newsletter…
Public Impact® Announces 2021 National Cohort of Opportunity Culture® Fellows
By Public Impact, June 17, 2021
Public Impact announces with pleasure the seventh cohort of Opportunity Culture Fellows, made up of eight principals who have achieved strong results in their schools and districts.
Fellows provide support to their cohort, take one another’s ideas back to their schools, write columns or lead webinars about their experiences, and speak locally and nationally about their Opportunity Culture roles. Their feedback and leadership are invaluable in helping to improve the Opportunity Culture initiative, and all materials related to it. Last year, for example, fellows shared their expertise in these webinars and columns.
Opportunity Culture® 2020-21 Dashboard Results, Tools, MCL Column: May Opportunity Culture® Newsletter
By Public Impact, May 25, 2021
In 2020–21, Opportunity Culture roles continued to provide a model of support that kept spreading, even in an exceptionally challenging year for educators, students, and families.
Each year, Public Impact analyzes the Opportunity Culture dashboard data to improve its materials and its work with schools and districts. With the overarching goal of reaching all students with high-growth learning, Public Impact has expanded the initiative’s participating schools by 50 percent each year, on average—helping schools and districts make changes that educators love, with increased career opportunities and support.
Annual Opportunity Culture® Dashboard Update Highlights Growth, Educator Support in 2020–21
By Public Impact, May 13, 2021
In 2020–21, Opportunity Culture roles continued to provide a model of support that kept spreading, even in an exceptionally challenging year for educators, students, and families.
As the Opportunity Culture Dashboard shows in its 2020–21 update, 13 more districts joined the Opportunity Culture initiative, founded and led by Public Impact. Nationally, Opportunity Culture sites now reach over 83,000 students with excellent teaching and over 3,400 teachers with advanced roles or on-the-job support and development on teaching teams. Read more…
Upcoming Webinar: Opportunity Culture® in North Carolina
By Public Impact, April 30, 2021
Tuesday, May 11, at 4:30 p.m. ET, Public Impact will host an online session featuring three Opportunity Culture educators to share information about Opportunity Culture roles and positions available in N.C. districts for 2021–22. Thanks to MCL Yolande Dixon of Vance County Schools, Principal Paul Travers of Guilford County Schools, and former Reach Associate—now teacher— Delmonika Vick of Edgecombe County Public Schools for sharing their stories in this session. Register here! (The session will also be recorded to view later at OpportunityCulture.org.)
Teacher of the Year column, Tools, News: April Opportunity Culture® Newsletter
By Public Impact, April 30, 2021
The April newsletter includes resources for multi-classroom leaders and principals, a column by the Baltimore City Public Schools Teacher of the Year, updates from Opportunity Culture districts, video playlists, and more. Read the April 2021 newsletter here.
Resources, Videos, News: March Opportunity Culture® Newsletter
By Public Impact, March 30, 2021
The March newsletter includes resources for recruiting and hiring for Opportunity Culture roles, a blog about one Texas teacher’s experience as an Opportunity Culture resident, Public Impact’s brief about federal policy recommendations, video playlists, and more. Read the full March 2021 newsletter here.
Quick Take: Why One Texas Teacher Loved Her Opportunity Culture® Residency
By Sharon Kebschull Barrett, March 29, 2021
Coming into her final semester of college as a student at the University of Texas Permian Basin in fall 2020, Chelsea McMahan decided to forgo a traditional student teaching post, applying instead for a full-time, paid, Opportunity Culture teacher residency in a fourth-grade class in the Midland, Texas, independent school district (ISD).
Six months later, McMahan found herself—as a newly minted, full-time sixth-grade teacher at another Midland school—standing before the district’s school board extolling the benefits of her residency. Read more…
Quick Take: Two MCLs’ Pandemic Tools to Monitor Student Understanding
By Sharon Kebschull Barrett, February 23, 2021
Although Nikki Glenn, a first-year MCL, and her team of four fifth-grade teachers at Falkener Elementary got to rejoin their students in the classroom for in-person learning in January (with one teaching children who chose to remain virtual), the tools they relied on last semester continue to prove their value.
Glenn’s team worked hard throughout the fall to determine how to effectively monitor students’ understanding and progress from a distance—useful still in socially distanced classrooms. Read more…