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Opportunity Culture® Virtual Site Visit

Welcome to virtual visits to three districts using Opportunity Culture® models!

Public Impact, which founded the national Opportunity Culture® initiative, routinely collaborates with districts to host site visits that allow visitors to see Opportunity Culture® roles in action. Get a sense of those visits here!

During a typical site visit, participants may observe…

Desert Willow Elementary, Carlsbad
Legacy Senior High, Midland ISD
Sam Houston Elementary, Ector County ISD

…team leaders and paraprofessionals leading multiple small groups; team leaders co-teaching with team teachers; team leaders meeting with their teaching teams.

In New Mexico, Carlsbad Municipal Schools hosted a site visit in November 2025, featuring two elementary schools and a middle school in their third year of implementation. These schools had just posted state-leading learning growth results for the previous year—including the highest growth in the state in the literacy proficiency rate among similar-size schools for one elementary, and the fourth-highest in the math proficiency rate for the middle school.

And in Texas in April 2022, two neighboring Texas school districts, Midland ISD and Ector County ISD, which was named the K-12 Dive District of the Year for 2024, hosted a visit to several elementary and secondary schools.

Many thanks to these districts for their time and hospitality! Their generous educators allowed site visit participants into their classrooms to see how Multi-Classroom Leader® teams, which included Reach Associate™ paraprofessionals and teacher residents, collaborate to improve student outcomes and teacher experiences.

Interested in attending an in-person site visit? Register here for an upcoming visit!

Opportunity Culture® Site Visit, Carlsbad Municipal Schools, New Mexico

This visit opened with an Opportunity Culture® overview from Public Impact® consultants, followed by a panel of educators at Cottonwood elementary school. Visitors then saw Multi-Classroom Leader® teams in action in Desert Willow elementary school and PR Leyva middle school. They saw classroom examples showing the interplay of Multi-Classroom Leader®, Master Team Reach Teacher™, team teacher, and Reach Associate™ roles, and examples of a team data analysis meeting and MCL™ coaching.

The visit coincided with a presentation about Opportunity Culture® results to the school board, shown here as well.

For more on Carlsbad, see:

🎧 Podcast |  Vacancies Plummet, Student Results Rocket in Carlsbad, New Mexico: Superintendent Gerry Washburn

💡 Spotlight |  Carlsbad Municipal Schools

🎥 Video |  Carlsbad Connections: How Teaching Teams Mesh for Success

🎥 Video |  No Going Back: Principals Need Opportunity Culture®Teams

For a glossary of terms used, see here. For more information about this staffing design, contact us!

Opening Session: Introduction to Opportunity Culture® Models

This video includes presentations from:

  • Anders Campbell, Public Impact®
  • Tanisha Dasmunshi, Public Impact®
  • Cecelia Burtis, Public Impact®
  • Mindy Rogers Robertson, Carlsbad Municipal School District
  • Allison Hervol, Carlsbad Municipal School District

Opening Session: Educator Panel

The educator panel features:

  • Donna Johns, principal, Cottonwood Elementary
  • Joleen Lopez, principal, Carlsbad Intermediate School Alta Vista
  • Annella Westfall, MCL™ educator, Cottonwood Elementary
  • Joelie Jones, MCL™ educator, Cottonwood Elementary
  • Angela Hurley, MCL™ educator, Cottonwood Elementary
  • Andrea Molina, MCL™ educator, Cottonwood Elementary

Classroom Observations: How Carlsbad Team Educators Work Together

Classroom Observations: How Carlsbad Team Educators Receive Coaching

Carlsbad Municipal School District Board of Education Meeting

This presentation to the board of education includes:

  • Anders Campbell, Public Impact®
  • Mindy Rogers Robertson, Carlsbad Municipal School District
  • Educators from Desert Willow Elementary School
  • Educators from Cottonwood Elementary School

Opportunity Culture® Site Visit, Permian Basin

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 educators in Opportunity Culture® roles, especially those in the Multi-Classroom Leader® ™ (MCL™) role, who lead small teaching teams. (Our apologies that some audio quality is not up to the standard of our other videos, due to our efforts to avoid disrupting the experience for the on-site audience.)

For a glossary of terms used, see here. For more information about this staffing design, contact us!

Opening Session: Introduction to the Districts

Opening Session: Introduction to the Districts

This video includes introductions from:

  • Troy Smith, Public Impact®
  • Chris Hightower, Opportunity Culture® Director, 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 highlighting team leaders in the MCL™ role and their team teachers

In this video, you will observe:

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

In this video, you will observe:

  • An ELAR team leader co-teaching with her fourth-grade team teacher
  • A Math team leader teaching a fifth-grade class with the support of her Reach Associate™ paraprofessional

In this video, you will observe:

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

Secondary School Visits highlighting team leaders in the MCL™ role and their team teachers

In this video, you will observe:

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

In this video, you will observe:

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

In this video, you will observe:

  • A biology team leader co-teaching with a first-year team teacher
  • An English II team leader 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: Jessica Webb, leader of a math team, 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:

CMS: Carlsbad Municpal Schools

ECISD: Ector County Independent School District

MISD: Independent School District

MCL™: The Multi-Classroom Leader® role is the foundational Opportunity Culture® role. A teacher in this role has a track record of high-growth student learning and leads a small teaching team in lesson planning, data analysis, and instructional changes. This team leader 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, and takes accountability for the results of all students taught by the team. They may be designated as MCL™ I or II depending on the size of the team they lead.

Partial-Release/Full-Release: Educators in the The Multi-Classroom Leader® role may be “full release”—meaning they have no classroom of record, so they can lead a slightly larger team—or “partial release,” in which they still lead their own classroom for part of the day, but have the support of advanced paraprofessionals to leave the classroom to lead the team.

TRT™: Team Reach Teacher role™; these teachers teach on an MCL™ team that reaches more students. The Master TRT™ role is for educators who also have a track record of high-growth student learning and assist with team leadership and/or reach significantly more students. 

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

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

NM-MSSA:The New Mexico Measures of Student Success and Achievement is New Mexico’s statewide summative assessment for mathematics and English language arts, administered at the end of Grades 3-8.

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 videos from the Permian Basin 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.