Teacher and Principal Residencies

How can new teachers and principals start their jobs prepared for educational excellence, and how can the schools that hire them know they’re ready to excel? In today’s preparation systems, no one is fully getting what they need—not aspiring teachers and principals, not schools, not students. There is a better way.

In Opportunity Culture schools, Multi-Classroom Leadership creates the potential for aspiring teachers to experience paid, full-time, yearlong residencies led by excellent teachers who lead small instructional teams, offered in collaboration with participating educator preparation providers. Similarly, Multi-School Leadership, in which excellent principals lead two or more schools, creates the potential for paid, full-time residencies for aspiring principals—particularly ones who have already led instructional teams as multi-classroom leaders. New school models allow both teacher and principal residents to be paid for a year within existing budgets.

Watch this video to hear educators describe how teacher residencies benefit students, schools, and aspiring teachers:

Publications: Public Impact explains how to create Opportunity Culture teacher residencies in these publications:

In Opportunity Culture Teaching Residencies: Summary, Public Impact explains how educator preparation providers and school districts can use five residency paths to open up possibilities for students at various stages of their education:

• a bachelor’s degree in four years
• a bachelor’s degree though an extended program for students who must work full time throughout college
• a combined bachelor’s and master’s degree
• a master’s degree in about 14 months
• or a certification residency for students who hold a bachelor’s degree

Many more details about these residencies are spelled out in the Teacher Residencies in an Opportunity Culture: Introduction slide deck.

Webinar: Featuring a panel of Opportunity Culture leaders, the Introduction to Opportunity Culture Models + Residency webinar gives an overview of the Opportunity Culture initiative and highlights how Opportunity Culture models help strengthen teacher pipelines and address teacher shortages in Texas, which has led the way in establishing paid, yearlong Opportunity Culture teacher residencies.

Job descriptions detail the duties of the two types of residents:

• Teacher Resident
• Reach Associate Resident

Read the white paper that kicked off Public Impact’s research and writing on these residencies: Paid Educator Residencies, Within Budget: How New School Models Can Radically Improve Teacher and Principal Preparation

Read this press release about two Texas districts working with US PREP and the University of Texas Permian Basin to include teacher residencies in their Opportunity Culture implementation, and this press release about three additional school districts and a charter management organization in Texas offering yearlong, paid residencies for aspiring teachers.

In the blog post, Two Keys to Success for Opportunity Culture Leaders, hear what Opportunity Culture leaders from two of these districts have to say about the power of their districts’ paid, yearlong teacher residencies on MCL teams.

As we explain in the blog post, How Opportunity Culture Redesigns Help Address Teacher Shortages, teacher residencies are just one way to address rising teacher shortages while offering a new professional trajectory for teachers.

To see models for other Opportunity Culture roles, such as multi-classroom leaders and multi-school leaders, click here.

More Videos

Hear from two teacher residents, a first-year teacher, and a multi-classroom leader in these short videos about the power of putting their teaching educations into practice under the intensive, yearlong leadership of a multi-classroom leader.