It all began with a fateful ride in a Chevy Suburban.
In 2022, Carlsbad, New Mexico, educators went on a Texas fact-finding mission to the Midland and Ector County school districts, checking out how they had restructured their staffing.
The trip was sparked by Carlsbad Deputy Superintendent LaVern Shan, a former Ector County principal who had begun to hear from colleagues there about Opportunity Culture® staffing models—and how they never wanted to be a principal anywhere that didn’t use them.
When she went back to see what all the fuss was about, Shan said she thought, “This is crazy. There is no way this would work. But I watched the data. I watched their vacancies. I’ve watched how things changed.”
Shan shared what she saw with Superintendent Gerry Washburn, and they took the 2022 trip with educators, school board members, and union officials.
“It gives me chills thinking about it,” Cottonwood Elementary School Principal Donna Johns said. “Right from the beginning, I was like, this is what we need. This is exactly what we need. …