Opportunity Culture® Spotlights

Madison Parish School District

In the Madison Parish School District in northeastern Louisiana, district leaders were ready for innovative ways to help the persistently low-performing system. The small, rural district, in which nearly all of its 1,300 students are eligible for free or reduced-price lunch, competes with nearby Monroe for teaching talent, and struggled to retain strong teachers and address its instructional needs.

In 2020, Charlie Butler returned to his hometown of Tallulah to become Madison’s superintendent, and with K–12 Supervisor Lucille Lovette and other district and school leaders, he embraced the concept of Opportunity Culture^® teaching teams. …

Ector County Independent School District

When Superintendent Scott Muri left his high-performing school district for Ector County, Texas, the president of the Ector County Independent School District (ECISD) board said he wondered whether Muri had “lost his mind” when he applied for the job, and Muri acknowledged that it would be a monumental challenge.

Indeed, upon arrival in summer 2019 in Odessa—known for oil wells and high school football—Muri was faced with 16 of the district’s 45 schools receiving an F from the Texas Education Agency, and four more graded a D—along with 350 teaching vacancies for its 34,000 students. …

Carlsbad Municipal Schools

It all began with a fateful ride in a Chevy Suburban.

In 2022, Carlsbad, New Mexico, educators went on a Texas fact-finding mission to the Midland and Ector County school districts, checking out how they had restructured their staffing.

The trip was sparked by Carlsbad Deputy Superintendent LaVern Shan, a former Ector County principal who had begun to hear from colleagues there about Opportunity Culture^® staffing models—and how they never wanted to be a principal anywhere that didn’t use them. …