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recruitment and retention

For Strong Educator Recruitment, Start Now: Tips from Opportunity Culture® District Leaders

December 11, 2023

For Nicole Hayes, recruiting educators to Nash County Public Schools means facing some stiff competition. Nash County abuts the much larger—and much wealthier—Wake County Public Schools in North Carolina.

And yet, “we’ve been able to retain teachers and bring some back to our district who left to go to Wake because their [pay] supplements are way higher,” she said.

Hayes, Nash’s Opportunity Culture director, and her peers in other districts of varying size have successfully improved their recruitment efforts for Opportunity Culture educator roles using some of the same strategies—garnering their districts not only more, but also stronger, applicants.

Texas Opportunity Culture® District Trumpets Recruitment Success

September 14, 2022

By Paola Gilliam and Sharon Kebschull Barrett, September 14, 2022

After struggling with teacher shortages for years, Ector County Independent School District (ISD) in Odessa, Texas, announced its best recruiting year in over a decade. In an Odessa American article, Superintendent Scott Muri attributed the recruiting success of about 450 teachers to several strategies, including Opportunity Culture implementation and pay raises.

We can rethink training, recruiting, deploying teachers

August 12, 2022

From Indianapolis Business Journal, August 12, 2022 by Claire Fiddian-Green

Indiana, like the rest of the nation, is grappling with a shortage of teachers. Although shortages are more acute today due to the impact of COVID-19 on labor markets, this challenge has existed for decades. Addressing teacher shortages for the long term will require us to rethink how we train, recruit and deploy teacher talent—and how policymakers can support these efforts. …

One idea is to live-stream lessons so that the same teacher can reach more than one classroom. Another idea is to restructure teacher teams, with some focused on lesson planning and others focused on teaching or tutoring. Public Impact’s Opportunity Culture resources have been used in schools nationwide to help educators revise staffing models. These creative approaches address staffing gaps, while also helping schools retain their highest-performing teachers.

Read the full article…

Muri: Good news on the teacher front

August 11, 2022

From OA Online, August 11, 2022

Armed with more than 400 new teachers and a pool of 500 substitutes, Ector County ISD is raring to go for this school year.

Superintendent Scott Muri said teachers from 25 countries are represented in classrooms across the district. He added that there is a member of the Human Capital Department who oversees all of the recruiting, retention and support of those individuals. …

He added that the district has made a “significant investment in our human capital strategy over the last three years.”

“We’ve increased teacher compensation. We provide some incentives for teachers to earn more money. We’re developing the professionalism of teachers in our own organization through the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards, building the quality and caliber of teachers that we have, providing leadership opportunities for teachers through Opportunity Culture.

Big Welcome: Community pulls out the stops for new ECISD teachers

August 1, 2022

From OA Online, August 2, 2022 by Ruth Campbell

Topping off its best recruiting year in more than a decade, Ector County ISD welcomed about 450 new teachers to the district Monday.

The Teacher Welcome Event, held at the Odessa Marriott Hotel & Conference Center, is organized by the Odessa Chamber of Commerce. Vendors, welcome signs, mascots and cheerleaders marked the occasion, along with prize drawings, food and plenty of swag. Superintendent Scott Muri said there were “450-ish” teachers who were either brand new to the district or teachers who have taught elsewhere.

“We’ve had the best recruiting year in over 10 years, so we’ll have a great start to the school year because of that,” Muri said. He said the recruiting success is a result of a combination of factors such as ECISD’s investment in talent, which is part of its strategic plan, pay raises, the Teacher Incentive Allotment and Opportunity Culture.

How Opportunity Culture® Redesigns Help Address Teacher Shortages

April 7, 2022

By Public Impact, April 7, 2022

What if you could improve student outcomes even in a time of rising teacher shortages?

Many schools and districts report feeling stuck on the hamster wheel of trying to fill all their open positions. This struggle has been worsening for years. According to one report, the share of schools that tried to fill a vacancy but couldn’t tripled from 2011 to 2016, from 3.1 percent to 9.4 percent, and the share of schools that reported that it was “very difficult” to fill a vacancy nearly doubled, from 19.7 percent to 36.2 percent. Those vacancies directly harm students’ learning.

What could take weary principals out of chronic emergency hiring mode? A chance to rethink staffing to give students excellent instruction using the number of adults a school has. Read More…

#3. How Opportunity Culture® Redesigns Help Address Teacher Shortages

April 7, 2022

What if you could improve student outcomes even in a time of rising teacher shortages? Many schools and districts report feeling stuck on the hamster wheel of trying to fill all their open positions—a struggle that has been worsening for years. Listen to this recording of our post about the solution that could take principals out of chronic emergency hiring mode, and how two principals have used that solution.

Muri: ECISD making progress

March 20, 2022

From Odessa American Online, March 20, 2022, by Ruth Campbell

While Ector County ISD may not be at the level it would like, Superintendent Scott Muri says good things are happening in the district.

In his State of the District address earlier in March, Muri said kindergarten readiness has increased by 13 percentage points, SAT scores were above the state level and there was a 7 percent increase this year over last in college, career and military readiness. This is a factor in state accountability standards.

He noted that the 84.7 percent graduation rate is the highest in 20 years. Read More…

Watch: Trends in the Teacher Workforce Webinar

March 18, 2022

By Public Impact, March 17, 2022

A recording of February’s “Trends in the Teacher Workforce” webinar, featuring a panel discussion moderated by Public Impact’s Alison Harris Welcher, is available now; click here to watch it and read EdNC’s report on the event, hosted by The Belk Foundation.

The panelists discussed strategies for recruiting and retaining teachers in North Carolina, including teacher residencies.

That’s a strategy that multiple Opportunity Culture school districts in Texas now use. Unlike traditional student-teacher roles, Opportunity Culture residencies are yearlong, paid positions on teaching teams led by multi-classroom leaders.