Portal User Log-inBy Margaret High, December 20, 2019
Opportunity Culture kept growing in 2019 to bring excellent teaching to students and career opportunities to educators. Our 10 most-read posts in 2019 included educator columns, new districts, the hot topic of the science of reading, teaching residencies, and more.
Suspending student suspensions: How teaching teams created calm classrooms
By Philip Steffes; first published by EducationNC, December 5, 2019
How can kids learn when they’re not in the classroom? That’s the issue I confronted when I arrived at Albemarle Road Elementary in Charlotte four years ago. Despite teachers who truly cared about their students, we had far too many suspensions. And students were struggling. When I first came here, 95% of our teachers had been in the red — not meeting student growth targets — in literacy for multiple years.
Advocating Effectively for Opportunity Culture: The Key Elements
By Margaret High, November 7, 2019
Imagine opening the first all-staff email from a new principal or superintendent that clearly shows a lack of understanding or support for the Opportunity Culture your district has in place. What do you do?
Opportunity Culture Fellows closed the 2019 convening by brainstorming solutions to this scenario in a session on the keys to effective advocacy—one of their most-requested topics.
How Opportunity Culture Principals Lead Change and Develop Leaders
By Margaret High, November 4, 2019
Leading change and developing leaders: Opportunity Culture principals must know how to do this for student and teacher success, and Opportunity Culture Fellows are hungry for tips from their colleagues who do it well. At the Opportunity Culture Fellows Convening, a panel of principals highlighted strong hiring and communications as two keys among many to success.
Building Team Cohesion: Opportunity Culture Fellows Share Strategies
By Margaret High, October 30, 2019
How can multi-classroom leaders (MCLs) build the cohesion of their teaching teams? A panel of five Opportunity Culture Fellows tackled this question—a hot topic among MCLs—with suggestions that focused on the joy of team leadership as well as how to address challenges with team members.
“My two things are genuinely caring about the people as individuals and as teachers. …And then really not being a know-it-all,” one panelist said. “I’m not coming into the classroom to make you into me. I’m coming in here to make you a better version of you.”
To Teach Reading Right, Understand the Science of Reading
By Margaret High, October 17, 2019
As CEO of the Mississippi-based Barksdale Reading Institute, Kelly Butler doesn’t mind saying schools teach literacy all wrong. Condensing the science of reading into a one-hour overview presentation for the Opportunity Culture Fellows Convening, Butler issued a clarion call for educators to to follow the science of reading, focusing on phonics, brain development, the five components of reading, and the simple view of reading. Butler’s efforts to spread the word have helped move Mississippi’s reading growth to the top of state rankings.
Strategies for Personalization: Learner Variability Tool Can Help
By Margaret High, October 9, 2019
Educators know they can’t design their instructional approach for one “average” student—but finding the right resources to make true personalization possible can be a time-consuming struggle. At their 2019 convening, Opportunity Culture Fellows tested one free tool that can help. Digital Promise, an independent, nonpartisan nonprofit, created its Learner Variability Project to translate the growing body of research on learning for educators and parents. Digital Promise created a whole-child framework that feeds into its free tool, the Learner Variability Navigator, which guides users through the factors they need to address for each student and strategies to match.
In Memoriam: Opportunity Culture Fellow Casandra Cherry
By Sharon Kebschull Barrett, September 23, 2019
Each year, Public Impact announces a new cohort of Opportunity Culture Fellows–multi-classroom leaders, principals, and others in Opportunity Culture roles who have achieved strong results and been leaders in their schools and districts. This spring, Casandra Cherry, the multi-classroom leader for math and science in grades 6–8 at Phillips Middle School in the Edgecombe County, North Carolina, school district, was one of the 15 Fellows named for 2019-20. We’re saddened to share that Ms. Cherry passed away suddenly on August 21. The impact she made on students over her 20 years as an educator is incalculable, her principal at Phillips, Jenny O’Meara, said.
Three Guilford County Educators Recognized by National Organization as Leaders in their Schools
From Guilford County Schools, June 11, 2019
One principal and two teachers were recognized for their outstanding leadership in the Opportunity Culture program by being inducted into the fifth class of Public Impact’s Opportunity Culture Fellows. Public Impact’s goal is to improve education for all students by finding, developing, and expanding the impact of outstanding educators.
Vance County Schools Staff Named Opportunity Culture Fellows
From The Daily Dispatch, June 8, 2019, by Miles Bates
Cherie Dixon from L.B. Yancey Elementary School, Casey Jackson from Aycock Elementary School and Aycock Principal Kristen Boyd are among the fifth cohort of “Opportunity Culture Fellows” recognized by a group called Public Impact.
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