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Welcome to this edition of the Opportunity Culture® Newsletter! Opportunity Culture® portal subscribers receive these newsletters automatically as part of their district’s portal benefits (log in here). Was this newsletter forwarded to you? Join our mailing list here!
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Opportunity Culture® educators, as you close out the 2025–26 year, congratulations on another nation-leading year of high-growth student learning!
You are part of a passionate community committed to instructional excellence—10,000+ teacher-leaders, teachers, paraprofessionals, and residents/apprentices reaching 275,000+ students this year alone! You have the talent to produce world-leading results with all students—with the right roles, pay, collaboration, and support.
Recent research and results show that you produce the most extra learning months and highest rates of schoolwide high-growth learning, with the largest student reach, among current U.S. staffing and school design efforts—nearly an extra half-year of learning annually, on average, and two to three times the rate of
schoolwide high-growth learning. Your satisfaction with teaching is up to two times national averages. Advocates and policymakers are noticing!
This summer and in the back-to-school newsletter, watch for our updated vision, detailed lessons from the latest data, and survey results. Until then, enjoy whatever break summer brings you! When you’re ready for them, don’t miss our summer planning tools on OpportunityCulture.org and design tools on the Opportunity Culture® portal—more on those below.
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OPPORTUNITY CULTURE® AUDIO When Rockingham County Schools, a rural North Carolina district, needed a teaching team leader with a record of high-growth learning for high school math, it faced a dilemma many rural areas confront: no candidate was available who had that record of learning growth and was ready to lead adults.
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The Remotely Located Multi-Classroom Leader® role came to the rescue. Public Impact® designed this MCL™ role to allow a team leader in another school down the street or across the state or country to remotely lead a teaching team. So the Rockingham and Edgecombe County districts joined forces, with a proven Edgecombe County team leader taking on a
two-person math team in Rockingham as well, providing coaching and guidance to quickly improve instruction for a first-year teacher and a veteran teacher who had not previously taught high school.
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🎧 Listen to this podcast with Moriah Dollarhite, Rockingham’s human resources director, for a quick overview of how the districts worked together and the results for Rockingham’s teachers and students.
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| When a coalition came together to form PA Needs Teachers in 2022, led by Teach Plus Pennsylvania and the National Center on Education and the Economy, it first advocated for policy wins around bringing teachers into the profession, such as student teacher stipends. But Pennsylvania had another problem—teachers got in, but then they got out.
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In February, Teach Plus Pennsylvania policy fellows published Reimagining Teaching: How Strategic Staffing Can Empower Teachers & Accelerate Learning in PA, calling for state support for staffing redesign for districts. Having studied strategic staffing models and seen Opportunity Culture® design in action in North Carolina schools, the guests in this Opportunity Culture® Audio piece explain how they envision staffing design making a difference across the commonwealth—for teacher satisfaction, student success, and the economy.
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🎧 Listen to this podcast featuring Laura Boyce, Christopher Brown, and Jill Weller-Reilly of Teach Plus Pennsylvania, and Nathan Driskell from the National Center on Education and the Economy.
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| Education advocates Mississippi First and Teach Plus Mississippi have both issued reports recently advocating for bold legislative action that would fund staffing redesign pilots, and they highlighted Opportunity Culture® design.
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In this audio piece, leaders of both groups and a Teach Plus Mississippi policy fellow talk about the dire need they hear from teachers throughout the state to ease the conditions leading to burnout and to great teachers leaving the profession altogether—and their hopes for how things could change for teachers, students, and parents if schools start using the teaching teams proven to support teachers and increase student learning.
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🎧 Listen to this podcast featuring Sanford Johnson and Sharon Buckhanan of Teach Plus Mississippi, and Grace Braezeale and Angela Bass of Mississippi First.
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DISTRICT SPOTLIGHT Madison Parish: Combining HQIM and Opportunity Culture® Staffing Design |
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In the Madison Parish School District in northeastern Louisiana, district leaders were ready for innovative ways to help the persistently low-performing system. The small, rural district, in which nearly all of its 1,300 students are eligible for free or reduced-price lunch, competes with nearby Monroe for teaching talent, and struggled to retain strong teachers and address its instructional needs.
To strengthen the foundation for students, the district started with Opportunity Culture® design in its elementary and middle schools in 2024–25.
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In summer 2025, the Louisiana Department of Education recognized Tallulah Elementary as a “Louisiana Literacy Leader” for its exceptional growth in literacy; the district improved its percentage of K–3 students testing at or above benchmark on the DIBELS literacy screener by 30.7%, placing it in the top three school systems across the state.
💡 Read how the elementary and middle schools embraced Multi-Classroom Leader® teams, focusing on the partial-release role, in our latest district spotlight.
🎧 And if you missed it, listen to our earlier Opportunity Culture® Audio piece to hear more from the district’s leaders about their work with the state to implement high-quality instructional materials and methods.
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STATE EDUCATION STANDARD 3 Key Steps for State Policymakers: Our New Journal Article Nationally, hundreds of Title I schools using Opportunity Culture® staffing design were two to three times more likely to achieve high-growth learning in 2024–25 than Title I schools in the same states not using these designs–outcomes exceeding other current national strategic staffing efforts. What would it take for school systems everywhere to see the same results?
A big part of the answer lies in the hands of state policymakers. In the latest issue of State Education Standard, the journal of the National Association of State Boards of Education, Sharon Kebschull Barrett and Bryan C. Hassel provide three key steps policymakers should take to support all of their districts in redesigning for student success and educator satisfaction.
As Barrett and Hassel noted, over more than a dozen years so far, Public Impact® has helped hundreds of schools in 18 states, including many in rural and semirural areas and low-income neighborhoods, to create designs that defied the odds, substantially improving learning and boosting educator job satisfaction within limited budgets.
Opportunity Culture® data and research show that these designs are producing nation-leading outcomes—more extra months of learning per year than other strategic staffing models, consistently high educator satisfaction, and average team leader supplements of $13K, and as high as $25K.
And the districts have stories to tell, from large, urban districts such as the 144,000-student Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools to more than a dozen districts with fewer than 10,000 students. In fact, half of the districts using Opportunity Culture® staffing design have fewer than 15 schools. This staffing design, with its blend of flexibility + fidelity to proven design standards, can work in districts throughout a state.
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In districts using Opportunity Culture® design… |
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So, Barrett and Hassel write, in a time of declining enrollments, tight budgets, and disappointing gains in student learning, state boards can support districts’ school redesign efforts. They describe three key steps:
- committing to data-driven results,
- catalyzing change through transition funding and removal of policy barriers, and
- continuing the monitoring and support needed to reach all students.
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"Opportunity Culture is the closest thing to a silver bullet that I’ve seen in my career."—Carlsbad Municipal Schools Superintendent Gerry Washburn
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Nash County Public Schools (N.C.)
Bailey Elementary School, Coopers Elementary School, Edwards Elementary School, Middlesex Elementary School, Nashville Elementary School, Rocky Mount Middle School
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Getting certified isn’t a box-checking exercise in compliance; it’s a top way for schools to actually check reality vs. goals and see where they can improve by meeting higher standards correlated with learning growth.
Higher levels equal more students reached with excellent teaching and increased small-group tutoring, and more educators reached with support and higher pay—all backed by more than a dozen years of data.
See the full list of certified schools at all levels—and if your school isn’t on the list yet, read on—there’s still time!
Speaking of Nash County, congratulations to Superintendent Steve Ellis, recently named superintendent of the year for the Central Carolina region; that puts him in the running for North Carolina Superintendent of the Year this fall.
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PROFESSIONAL LEARNING Join the Jam! |
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Our 'Summer Jam' Professional Learning for Educators hits the stage in July—come celebrate the artistry of teaching and the power of distributed leadership at this festival of different voices, energizing experiences, and collaborative spaces. Educators and district leaders can recharge, reflect, and reimagine instructional excellence while learning about their Opportunity Culture® roles and teaching teams.
Join the jam live and in-person in North Carolina or live, virtually from anywhere!
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Tour Dates:
In-person, Raleigh, North Carolina: July 8–9, 2026 from 8:30–4:00 ET; Register by June 1
Virtual: July 28–30, 2026; Register by July 14
Learn more by visiting the tour hub—and get your all-access pass before the shows sell out!
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Ready to lead beyond your classroom? Register for one of our Instructional Leadership Labs! These professional learning series are designed for high-performing educators ready to expand their skills to team or adult
leadership.
Designed to fit alongside full-time teaching responsibilities, the labs combine guided video observations with live, virtual coaching to give educators what they need to lead meaningful instructional change.
The three-month Instructional Leadership Lab: Observation and Coaching series is designed for aspiring teacher-leaders who want to sharpen their ability to see instruction clearly and respond with purpose.
The yearlong Instructional Leadership Lab+: Complete Instructional Cycle series is ideal for educators stepping into or strengthening leadership roles, covering planning and data-driven instruction as well as observation and feedback.
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**Arkansas educators, take note! The Instructional Leadership Lab+ is an approved pathway for the Lead Professional Educator designation**
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Instructional Leadership Lab: Observation & Coaching In the five-session Instructional Leadership Lab, run over three months beginning in February, participants learn how to observe classrooms with precision, collect
low-inference data, and identify the highest-leverage action steps to improve teaching and learning.
Join our free info session, November 18, 2026!
REGISTER
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Instructional Leadership Lab+: Complete Instructional Cycle In eight monthly sessions offered throughout the school year, the Instructional Leadership Lab+ builds on the core practices of observation and feedback with planning
and data-driven instruction practices to further strengthen learning results, finishing with a capstone project.
Enroll by August 28, 2026 for the 2026–27 session!
REGISTER
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GRANT OPPORTUNITIESGet Help Bringing Grants to Your State and District, With No or Minimal Extra Costs Bring our record of success to your district or state!
Ending this month, we are offering limited free grant writing for the Teacher and School Leader Incentive Program (TSL), the Supporting Educator Effectiveness and Development Program (SEED), and the Teacher Quality Partnership Program (TQP).
Learn more about the alignment of these grants and Opportunity Culture® design on our website and contact us quickly for assistance, whether you are a state leader or with a school system that wants to be part of a state application.
We are also offering assistance for NC Advanced Teaching Roles applications: Since 2016, over 70% of districts receiving Advanced Teaching Roles funds have used Opportunity Culture® staffing designs in their applications.
Register today to learn more at a May 29 or July 16 session, or if you’re ready to go, email our team at outreach@publicimpact.com to schedule time to
discuss your interest, service pricing, and application needs.
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MONTHLY UPDATES This Month in Opportunity Culture® CertificationDon’t miss out! Get your school’s 2025–26 certification and
celebrate with your staff, families, and community.
Log on to the Opportunity Culture® portal to earn certification before June 30th. Want help? Join our last live certification webinar this school year for clear guidance and hands-on support to assert with confidence, or see a how-to resource guide for step-by-step support.
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This Month in the Opportunity Culture® Portal Do you know about the portal’s on-demand courses?
Use these flexible, self-paced courses whenever they suit your schedule for professional learning tied in to your Opportunity Culture work and teaching teams.
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The ever-growing library covers topics ranging from building a schoolwide tutoring culture to incorporating AI in supporting OC® work and teams, as well as fundamentals of Opportunity Culture® design to ensure a shared understanding of roles and expectations. The courses are free for everyone with portal access.
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Click to watch excerpts from 4 modules!
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To get started, just log in, head to the Learn room, and select “Learn More” on any course labeled “on demand.”
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This Month in Leadership Coaching
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As the school year ends, leadership teams have an opportunity to review student learning growth, assessment results, attendance, and instructional trends to identify strengths and needs for the coming year.
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Use leadership coaching to move from reviewing data to taking action: Identify key priorities, align professional learning, strengthen teaching teams, and make informed staffing and instructional decisions.
Schools implementing Opportunity Culture® design use data-informed planning to maximize the effects of distributed leadership. Is your school not yet using OC® staffing design? Leadership coaching still gives you a clear process for turning end-of-year data into a strong start for next year, and plenty to consider about how you can reach further.
Set your school up for success—contact us to get started!
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EVENTS Register for Upcoming Events
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All events below are FREE of charge—click links to register!
May 29: NC ATR Grant Writing Support, 11:30 a.m. ET | Register
June 4: Intro to Opportunity Culture® Info Session, 1:00 p.m. ET | Register
June 16: Navigating OC® Certification Process, 12:00 p.m. ET | Register
July 9: Intro to Opportunity Culture® Info Session, 1:00 p.m. ET | Register
July 16: NC ATR Grant Writing Support, 1:00 p.m. ET | Register
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RESOURCES Tools You Need Now Happy almost-summer! As you think ahead to the planning for next year, don’t miss the instructional leadership and excellence resources on the Opportunity Culture® website, including study guides, video clips, and other tools.
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The following terms are registered trademarks: Opportunity Culture®, Public Impact®, Multi-Classroom Leader®, OC®, and Certified Opportunity Culture School®. We thank sites using Opportunity Culture® models for adhering to
trademark usage standards, signaling to the public that they are using data-proven models to dramatically increase student learning and boost teacher satisfaction.
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To stay up to date on all Opportunity Culture® happenings—new resources, news stories, new Opportunity Culture® districts, and more—follow us on LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, and Bluesky—and if you’re posting, use #OpportunityCulture, @OppCulture, or @PublicImpact, and we’ll retweet/share your comments!
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The Public Impact® mission is to improve education dramatically for all students—especially students whose needs have not been well met. We are a team of professionals from many backgrounds, including former teachers and principals. We are researchers, thought leaders, tool builders, and on-the-ground consultants who work with leading education reformers. To learn more, please visit www.publicimpact.com.
This newsletter was made possible in part by supporters of the Opportunity Culture® initiative. The statements made and views expressed are solely the responsibility of Public Impact®.
© 2026 Public Impact®/Opportunity Culture®
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Public Impact, 405 East Main Street, Carrboro, North Carolina 27510, United States
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