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Opportunity Culture® Virtual Site Visit

Welcome to a virtual visit to two Opportunity Culture® districts!

During site visits, participants observed an MCL co-teaching with a team teacher at Legacy Senior High in Midland ISD…

…and an MCL leading a teaching team meeting at Sam Houston Elementary in Ector County ISD.

Public Impact®, which founded the national Opportunity Culture® initiative, periodically collaborates with Opportunity Culture® districts to host site visits, which allow visitors to see Opportunity Culture® roles in action. The videos on this page come from the daylong site visit hosted in April 2022 by two neighboring Texas school districts, Midland and Ector County—to whom we offer many thanks for their time and hospitality! Their generous educators” sentence with this—this sentence is on both pages: Their generous educators allowed site visit participants into their classrooms to see how Multi-Classroom Leader teams, which included Opportunity Culture® Reach Associate paraprofessionals and teacher residents, collaborate to improve student outcomes and teacher experiences.

For more information about the Opportunity Culture® initiative or future in-person site visits, contact us!

Opportunity Culture® Site Visit, Permian Basin, April 28, 2022

The videos below offer a condensed version of the busy site visit day, including comments from both superintendents, words of introduction from school principals, classroom footage, and question-and-answer time with several Opportunity Culture® educators. (Our apologies that some audio quality is not up to the standard of Public Impact®’s other videos, due to our efforts to avoid disrupting the experience for the on-site audience.)

For a glossary of terms used throughout the day, see here.

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Opening Session: Introduction to the Districts

Opening Session: Introduction to the Districts

This video includes introductions from:

  • Troy Smith, Assistant Vice President, Public Impact®
  • Chris Hightower, Director of Opportunity Culture®, Midland ISD
  • Jessie Garcia, Talent Development Director, Ector County ISD
  • Dr. Larry Daniels, Dean, College of Education, UT Permian Basin
  • Dr. Anjelica Ramsey, Superintendent, Midland ISD
  • Dr. Scott Muri, Superintendent, Ector County ISD

Elementary School Visits

In this video, you will observe:

  • An MCL leading a team meeting on data-driven instruction with his third-grade teachers
  • An MCL and her teacher resident co-teaching a fourth-grade lesson

In this video, you will observe:

  • An ELAR MCL co-teaching with her fourth-grade team teacher
  • A Math MCL teaching a fifth-grade class with the support of her reach associate

In this video, you will observe:

  • An MCL leading a team meeting with her three kindergarten team teachers
  • An MCL co-teaching a fourth/fifth grade combo class with two teacher residents

Secondary School Visits

In this video, you will observe:

  • An English II MCL co-teaching a class with a first-year team teacher
  • A Biology MCL leading a team meeting with two team teachers

In this video, you will observe:

  • An English I MCL co-teaching a class with a first-year team teacher

In this video, you will observe:

  • A Biology MCL co-teaching with a first-year team teacher
  • An English II MCL leading a team meeting to plan for a lesson

School Q&A Session Topics

Featuring:

  • Permian High School: Principal Delesa Styles, Associate Principal Johna Straw, and Jessie Garcia, Director of Talent Development, Ector County ISD
  • Legacy High School: Principal Shannon Torres

Featuring:

  • Permian High School: Jessie Garcia, Director of Talent Development, Ector County ISD

Featuring:

  • Legacy High School: MCL Jessica Webb and Principal Shannon Torres

Featuring:

  • Legacy High School: MCL Jessica Webb and Principal Shannon Torres

Featuring:

  • Permian High School: Jessie Garcia, Principal Delesa Styles
  • Sam Houston Elementary School: Principal Crystal Marquez
  • Dowling Elementary School: MCL Lennie Garcia
  • Emerson Elementary School: Principal Christin Reeves

Featuring:

  • Legacy High School: Principal Shannon Torres

Featuring:

  • Legacy High School: MCL Jessica Webb and Team Teacher Evelyn Mojica

Featuring:

  • Emerson Elementary School: MCL Laura Ball, Principal Christin Reeves

Featuring:

  • Dowling Elementary School: Teacher Resident Kristen Campbell, MCL Lennie Garcia
  • Emerson Elementary School: Principal Christin Reeves

Featuring:

  • Midland Freshman High School: MCL Ashley Brandt
  • Dowling Elementary School: MCL Lennie Garcia and Principal Julie Marshall

Featuring:

  • Legacy High School: MCL Jessica Webb
  • Dowling Elementary School: MCL Lennie Garcia

Glossary of terms you will hear in these videos:

ECISD: Ector County Independent School District

MISD: Independent School District

MCL: Multi-Classroom Leader, the foundational Opportunity Culture® role. An MCL is a teacher with track record of high-growth student learning who leads lesson planning, data analysis, and instructional changes for a small teaching team. The MCL observes, gives feedback, and coaches team teachers, co-teaches with and models instructional delivery for them, and continues to teach some portion of the time. MCLs may be designated as MCL I or II depending on the size of the team they lead.

TRT: Team Reach Teacher role; TRTs teach on a team led by an MCL that reaches more students. Master TRTs, who also have a track record of high-growth student learning, assist the MCL with team leadership and/or reach significantly more students. 

RA: Reach Associate role—an advanced paraprofessional who supports TRTs and MCLs with a focus on providing instructional support, with the strong guidance and coaching of the MCL. RAs typically tutor small groups or individuals, as the MCL and team determine, in a learning lab or in a teacher’s classroom.

TR: Teacher resident, who serves on an MCL’s team for a yearlong, paid teacher residency in a similar role to an RA; residents also co-teach, learn student data analysis, and get observation/feedback.

TEKS (pronounced TEAKS): The Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills, the state standards for what students should know in each subject/grade.

CFA: Common formative assessment

STAAR: A series of standardized tests—the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness

Note: When these videos were filmed, districts were just coming out of Covid shutdowns, so you will hear references to schools not having official accountability for the previous school year.

For many more videos about the Opportunity Culture® initiative, see here; for videos for educators focused on key elements of instructional leadership and excellence, see here.