By Sharon Kebschull Barrett, May 13, 2020
Part 1 of 3
“I’m not in this for the money,” teachers routinely say. And yet, money and the respect of being decently paid matters—witness teacher protests across the country in recent years. So why would a teacher drive (pre-COVID-19) through a wealthier, better-paying district to head for one that pays less and serves a higher-need student population? One Texas district can answer that with two words: Opportunity Culture. Read more…
By Sharon Kebschull Barrett, May 1, 2020
As the COVID-19 crisis sent students and teachers home, we shared the stories of Opportunity Culture Fellows—educators chosen for their leadership and success helping students make high learning growth—as they were making the shift to at-home teaching. We listened during their interviews for their tips for others focused on helping students learn—and supporting their social-emotional health—no matter what challenges they or their students face, especially if at-home learning continues into the fall or recurs sporadically. Read More…
From Education Dive, April 30, 2020, by Linda Jacobson
In Vance County Schools in North Carolina, teachers are also expected to provide feedback on all student work, “even if it’s just a thumbs up,” explained Casey Jackson, who teaches 3rd grade math at Aycock Elementary School, but also serves as a multi-classroom teacher as part of the Opportunity Culture model.
When students take online quizzes, they immediately see what they missed and what they answered correctly, she said. She also provides written feedback in Google Classroom. Read more…
By Sharon Kebschull Barrett, April 10, 2020
“Really, everyone’s a first-year teacher at this.”
When Christina Ross’s small Arizona school shut down for COVID-19, educators knew they needed to move quickly to meet students’ immediate needs. Fifty miles northwest of downtown Phoenix, Desert Oasis Elementary is one of two schools in Nadaburg Unified School District, which Ross describes as “half-rural,” serving a total of 1,200 K-8 students. Read more…
By Sharon Kebschull Barrett, April 8, 2020
During the coronavirus crisis—and any future periods of at-home teaching and learning—rural school districts face special challenges. In North Carolina’s Edgecombe County Public Schools, Multi-Classroom Leader Amy Pearce said in a recent interview, two keys to taking care of students will be schoolwide consistency and a focus on taking care of stressed teachers. Read more…
By Sharon Kebschull Barrett, March 31, 2020
Keep doing what works: For Erin Burns Mehigan, that message has been central to her school’s shift to at-home teaching and learning. Now an assistant principal at Jay M. Robinson Middle School in Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools, Mehigan was a multi-classroom leader at West Charlotte High School and a 2015–16 Opportunity Culture Fellow.
She took what worked for her as a multi-classroom leader (MCL) to her role at Robinson leading the team of science teachers, as well as all seventh-grade teachers. That includes regular team meetings, which now gather on Zoom twice a week to continue their work to use data-driven instruction, discuss how to hold small-group instruction virtually, and develop at-home schedules that support students without overwhelming them. Read more…
By Sharon Kebschull Barrett, March 27, 2020
For Tu Willingham, distance teaching and team-leading are already well underway. A history multi-classroom leader at Banneker High School in Fulton County (Georgia) Schools, Willingham has tackled the early weeks of the school shutdown with strong team leadership and ideas about what can make distance learning work.
Everyone needs time to adapt to the reality now, Willingham said, noting that he felt inundated by the news until this week, when he felt better able to “move on and just accept the fact that this is a difficult situation that we have to get through.” Read more…
From EducationNC, Marc 23, 2020, by Mebane Rash
Readers have been asking what multi-classroom leaders will do during coronavirus, wondering if those lessons could be more quickly scaled to other schools while everyone is experimenting with e-learning.
On March 20, our colleagues at Opportunity Culture, an initiative of Public Impact, released this slide deck via email. According to Opportunity Culture, multi-classroom leaders are “teachers with a record of high-growth student learning and leadership competencies” that “both teach part of the time and lead small, collaborative teams of two to eight teachers, paraprofessionals, and teacher residents in the same grade or subject.”
By Sharon Kebschull Barrett, March 22, 2020.
We’ve heard from teachers nationwide what a busy, anxious week the past one was, preparing to do all teaching and learning at home. But we’ve also heard how so many multi-classroom leaders (MCLs) are forging ahead, preparing to continue strong team leadership from afar.
As the week wound down, MCL Fred Hoffmann, science MCL at Fairview Elementary in Guilford County Schools and an Opportunity Culture Fellow, took a few minutes while driving with his father and young children to tell me about what he’s done to prepare for coming weeks with his team, and the stresses and positive signs he’s seen. Read more…
By Sharon Kebschull Barrett; first published by EducationNC, March 18, 2020
Can deep dives into large flows of student learning data actually lower teacher stress? Successful multi-classroom leaders, who lead small teaching teams in data analysis, say yes. When schools focus on small teams led by highly successful teachers, they help address the concerns North Carolina teachers expressed in a recent EdNC.org survey about professional development on using data and about having time to analyze and use data. Read more…