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:
- 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.
- Teacher Residencies in an Opportunity Culture: Introduction: Many more details about these residencies are spelled out in this slide deck.
- These job descriptions detail the duties of the two types of residents: Teacher Resident and Reach Associate Resident.
Learn more about our vision for Opportunity Culture teacher residencies in these publications:
- How Innovative Staffing Can Address Teacher Shortages, Permanently—and Boost Learning: Staffing shortages have plagued some schools for decades. How can innovative staffing designs help—and boost learning? Innovative staffing means thinking differently about instructional roles and available funding to improve academics, creating new career options for teachers and addressing persistent teaching vacancies. The Opportunity Culture initiative offers schools new tools to address staffing shortages, including high-paying advanced roles, improved support for new teachers, and staffing models that do not require filling every teacher vacancy to ensure that students have access to excellent instruction.
- Paid Educator Residencies, Within Budget: How New School Models Can Radically Improve Teacher and Principal Preparation: Read the white paper that kicked off Public Impact’s research and writing on these residencies.
Other resources
Webinar
- Introduction to Opportunity Culture Models + Residency: Featuring a panel of Opportunity Culture leaders, this 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.
Press releases
- Texas Districts Launch Paid, Financially Sustainable Opportunity Culture Teacher Residencies: Read about two Texas districts working with US PREP and the University of Texas Permian Basin to include teacher residencies in their Opportunity Culture implementation.
- Arkansas, Texas, Virginia, and North Carolina School Systems Join National Opportunity Culture Initiative: Read about three additional school districts and a charter management organization in Texas offering yearlong, paid residencies for aspiring teachers.
Blog posts
- Two Keys to Success for Opportunity Culture Leaders: Hear what Opportunity Culture leaders from two districts have to say about the power of their districts’ paid, yearlong teacher residencies on MCL teams.
- How Opportunity Culture Redesigns Help Address Teacher Shortages: Learn how teacher residencies are one way to address rising teacher shortages while offering a new professional trajectory for teachers.
In the News
- Teacher Apprenticeships Are Booming in Wake of Shortages. Here’s What You Need to Know, Education Week, March 17, 2023, by Madeline Will
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.
Audriana Munoz on Being a Teacher Resident: Audriana Munoz, a teacher resident at Pease Elementary in Ector County ISD, describes how her yearlong paid residency, working under the guidance of a multi-classroom leader, prepared her to enter the teaching profession already feeling like “a second-year teacher.”
More Than A Student Teacher: Alyssa Cool served as a teacher resident for a year in a pilot program for residents at Lew Wallace Elementary in Indianapolis. She gradually took on more responsibilities over the year, ultimately taking over a classroom for a teacher on leave, under the full supervision of her multi-classroom leader.
I Want to be Like Karen: Emily Angles, a first-year teacher working on a multi-classroom leader’s team, explains her enthusiasm about teaching based on the leadership, guidance, and support she received from her MCL, saying “I feel like I’ve gone from a first-year teacher to a third-year teacher in six months.”
Paying It Forward By Supporting New Teachers: Multi-Classroom Leader Lara Harris remembers how lucky she felt at the start of her own career to have a mentor who provided deep support—something Harris is thrilled to provide as an MCL at a high-poverty, high-needs school.
schools