Fidelity and Collaboration: Opportunity Culture Directors Share Advice on Common Challenges
By Sharon Kebschull Barrett, October 17, 2022 Whether in districts large or small, rural or urban, Opportunity Culture directors often travel similar arcs from initial design issues to implementation challenges and successes. At the September virtual gathering of Opportunity Culture directors, four panelists shared how Opportunity Culture implementation has improved their district recruitment, teacher support, and student success, and discussed the collaboration needed among district offices, accountability concerns, and how their roles have changed.
Teacher-Assistant Partnership Helps Students Grow
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…
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2 Opportunity Culture Educators Among 9 Regional N.C. Principals of the Year
By Sharon Kebschull Barrett, February 28, 2022Congratulations to KaTrinka Brown, Piedmont-Triad Region Principal of the Year, and Larenda Denien, Southwest Region Principal of the Year! The awards place Brown and Denien in the running for North Carolina Principal of the Year, announced in May.I spoke to both principals recently, and as you’ll read in spotlights of each, a common theme in their leadership success quickly emerged: the power of relationships.
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“Everybody is Traumatized”: Opportunity Culture Fellows on Keeping On
By Sharon Kebschull Barrett, January 25, 2022 With ongoing Covid-related stresses this year, many Opportunity Culture educators have wondered how much their challenges match those of other Opportunity Culture schools. Before the winter break, educators from multiple cohorts of Opportunity Culture Fellows gathered online to share their experiences and support one another—and found their stresses mirrored much of what has been in the news for months.
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A great teacher reflects on remote instruction shortfalls
By Sharon Kebschull Barrett, first published by EducationNC, September 22, 2021 Jimmel Williams knows great teachers. After all, he is one, with the student results to show for it. But last fall, he says now, his teaching fell short. With his Charlotte students all learning remotely, his efforts felt off, though he couldn’t fully put his finger on what wasn’t working. He kept making changes each week to get students more engaged in their learning, but…
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One teacher’s message for Secretary Cardona
By Sharon Kebschull Barrett, first published by EducationNC, August 16, 2021 When multi-classroom leader Kenyatta Davenport got the chance to talk to U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona, her message was simple: Teachers haven’t given up, but we need your support to get students back on track after the coronavirus — and fast. Simple — and short, since she had limited time to speak to Cardona when he visited Charlotte-Mecklenburg schools on July 12. But…
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Personalize learning for educators, not just students
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…
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The Support Baltimore Teachers Deserve—Now and Post-Pandemic
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…
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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…
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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…
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Quick Take: Leading Opportunity Culture at the State Level
By Sharon Kebschull Barrett, February 17, 2021 How does it work to lead Opportunity Culture from the state level? I spoke recently with Kelly McLaughlin, who leads the Opportunity Culture state initiative in the Division of Elementary & Secondary Education within the Arkansas Department of Education, to get the scoop on the benefits to districts when the state takes the lead to spread Opportunity Culture (OC) implementation. McLaughlin took this role in August 2020, after…
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No More “Zoo Wallace”: Becoming a Welcoming, Successful School
By Jeremy Baugh, February 15, 2021 In 2015, when I came to Lew Wallace Elementary in Indianapolis Public Schools as its fourth principal in four years, the community referred to the school as “Zoo Wallace,” and families openly expressed disappointment in being placed there. Still, after sending out flyers and emails and making calls home about our meet-the-teacher night, I was shocked to have only one parent show up. In my 10 years as a…
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