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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 (portal log-in here).
Not already subscribed to our mailing list? Join here.
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INITIATIVE NEWSCongratulations to Newly Certified Schools!
We at Public Impact® are excited to announce that 366 schools in eight states have been awarded the new designation of Certified Opportunity Culture School™, Provisional Level, 2023–24! Showing their commitment to reaching all students with excellent teaching, consistently, and all educators with excellent, paid career opportunities, these schools can use their certified status to attract applicants looking for support and career paths, and reassure parents, their community, state, and funders that they are using models that increase student learning.
See the complete list of all newly certified schools in Arkansas, California, Louisiana, Maryland, New Mexico, North Carolina, Texas, and Virginia here.
Certification levels convey strength of implementation in key areas, including selectivity of Opportunity Culture® roles, student access to these roles’ team-based instruction, small-group, high-dosage tutoring, and financial sustainability of plans.
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The newly certified schools are all at the “provisional” level reflecting their 2023–24 year, and they can attain higher certification levels for this year and
beyond. Certified schools are listed on the Opportunity Culture® website and linked on social media; higher certification levels unlock even more coverage in the future.
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Certification helps schools and districts really understand what quality implementation looks like, and they can use that as a way to actually communicate that to families and to stakeholders
in the community.
—Public Impact® Consulting Manager Whitaker Brown
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There are so many results to take note of in districts with certified schools!
For one example: In North Carolina, the five largest districts—Wake, Charlotte-Mecklenburg, Guilford, Winston-Salem-Forsyth, and Cumberland—have certified schools.
Newly released state data for the 2023–24 year shows that North Carolina schools eligible for Title I funding that have been using Opportunity Culture® models for four or more years were 43% more likely to make high schoolwide growth (exceeding state growth expectations) than Title I schools not using the models. Even in early years of implementation, the models make an immediate difference: The data shows that all Title I schools using the models, including those in early years, were 33% more likely to make high schoolwide growth. The schools with the models were also 20% to 35% less likely to make low growth than comparable schools without the models.
“Terms like ‘strategic staffing’ and ‘innovative staffing’ are becoming more familiar in education circles as leaders recognize the need to rethink roles, schedules and use of funding in schools. We are pleased to celebrate the first set of certified schools, whose educators raised their hands to tackle redesign work and are now doubling down on staffing design with results. Design details matter for students!” said Stephanie Dean, strategic director and senior vice president of Opportunity Culture® policy and outreach.
Watch this brief video, "Certification Helps Schools See How Their Practices Compare."
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The portal now allows our clients to be able to see how their design and implementation decisions really compared to some of the research and best practices we've identified.
—Public Impact® Consultant Itané Phillips
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Debuting on the Opportunity Culture® Portal
Now available to all educators in schools with a portal subscription:
We are excited to introduce the new online Self-Driven Design™ process, the result of a two-year effort to let schools and systems create or maintain their Opportunity Culture® plans for a low cost. Through this asynchronous process, teams get step-by-step guidance and on-demand PD to support their planning, leading to a recommendation for a staffing design to fit their context, based on research. A coaching package is also available to add limited, live
support by Public Impact®.
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Webinar – Your New Tool to Reach All Students: Meet the New Opportunity Culture® Portal
This Thursday, October 3, 3:30–4:30 pm ET
Join us for a live demo of the portal’s features that help you scale up school staffing design and strengthen implementation. Benefit from a Q&A that will help you envision how this tool reduces capacity challenges that might be hampering your district’s effort to reach all students with excellent instruction!
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REGISTER
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And check out these among many other offerings on the portal—along with the design modules, portal learning opportunities offer certificates educators can use to apply for CEUs:
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With our SIMPLE-TC™ tutoring culture framework, teaching team leaders or other teacher-leaders can follow a self-paced course on the portal or join live, virtual sessions to learn how to create a small-group tutoring culture that reaches all students, provided by all available adults within the school. Participants will receive a certificate of completion that can be submitted to their school district to apply for CEU credits.
Team teachers can experience on-demand learning with our Teachers on an Opportunity Culture® Team course. Designed specifically for teachers on Multi-Classroom Leader™ teams, this course provides comprehensive insights into strategic staffing models and roles on these teams, including their purpose, rationale, and implementation strategies.
In the portal’s “tools room," all educators have access to 100+ carefully created resources that support strong design and implementation of Opportunity Culture® models. These tools include scheduling templates and examples, job descriptions, communication action planners, and resources that support team leader accountability and evaluation.
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A Note from our Co-Presidents |
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Nearly two years ago, we set out to increase the Public Impact team’s innovation speed dramatically.
Our goals: first, drastically reduce the cost of boosting student learning and educator pay through data-driven staffing models, and second, ensure continued student learning results.
We are thrilled now to launch the “design” room in the Opportunity Culture® portal—which guides the transition in a school or district’s staffing design at a tiny fraction of the price just two years ago. And we’re delighted to launch the new certification system that educators and families can count on when they choose schools using Opportunity Culture® models. And we can’t wait to see how schools use the new tutoring culture tools and learning series to boost student learning.
Every year, each team in our office chooses a nickname. This year, we two are named “Starstruck.” We are wowed by the superstar leadership and excellence of everyone at Public Impact® and of the thousands of educators across the U.S. designing and implementing these staffing models that increase learning, educator pay, and joy for all. Cheers to all of you!
—Starstruck (Emily and Bryan Hassel), Co-Presidents, Public Impact®
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Emily Ayscue Hassel
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Bryan Hassel
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Protecting Results Through Opportunity Culture® Terms
As you see in the co-presidents’ note, a big goal for us at Public Impact® is to protect the results stemming from excellent educator careers and excellent student results! One way we are doing that, and asking for your help, is by protecting trademarked terms for schools and systems using Opportunity Culture® models. That means using ™ and ® symbols with trademarked terms and role titles, and using those terms and titles with a noun, as is proper for trademarking—such as “the Multi-Classroom Leader™ role.”
In the 2024–25 school year, schools using Opportunity Culture® models will reach nearly 200,000 students. These trademarked terms signify to communities and families that schools and districts are using Opportunity Culture® models to design standards proven to enhance student learning growth and educator pay sustainably for the long term.
To help, you can use trademarked terms properly, especially in materials seen by the broader public, such as on your website and in recruitment materials. And we’ll help you help us! Your Public Impact® site lead will be providing more information, guidance, and support soon and over the coming year. We appreciate your help in this!
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A correction: In the last newsletter, we highlighted some of the latest results from the annual survey of educators in schools using Opportunity Culture® models, but an editing error conflated some results. We apologize for the error; take a look at the corrected results, below:
In the 2024 survey, 99% of educators in the Multi-Classroom Leader™ role and 91% of educators in all Opportunity Culture® roles wanted Opportunity Culture® implementation to continue.
97% of educators in the MCL™ role and 93% of educators in all Opportunity Culture® roles say teachers receive feedback that can help them improve teaching.
97% of educators in the MCL™ role and 92% of educators in all Opportunity Culture® roles say supports translate to improvements in instructional practices.
96% of educators in the MCL™ role and 96% of educators in all Opportunity Culture® roles say teachers are held to high professional standards for delivering instruction.
96% of educators in the MCL™ role and 91% of educators in all Opportunity Culture® roles say excellent teachers have opportunities to lead peers.
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WEBINARSGet Your Teaching Team Superpower: Cohesive Lesson Planning
How can teaching teams activate the superpower that is collaborative, cohesive lesson planning? If you’re a teaching team leader, how can you guide your team through productive planning meetings that create cohesive instruction for all the team’s students? If you’re on a teaching team, how can you get the most out of planning meetings, and help ensure great instruction across the team?
Join us for two webinar sessions led by two team leaders with a record of producing student learning growth, Alex Tobin of Thomasville City Schools and Tameka Rover-Brown of Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools, to help you be a hero for your students with powerful plans and a roadmap and resources to carry them out. They’ll show you how, whether you use a scripted curriculum or bake yours up from scratch—or both. Useful for all educators, but especially for those at the elementary level, these quick-tip sessions will leave you powered up and ready to teach.
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October 17, 3:30-4 p.m. ET
Session 1: Planning with A
Scripted
Curriculum—Why and How?
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October 24, 3:30-4 p.m. ET
Session 2: Baking Up Lesson Plans from
Scratch
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LEARNINGRegister for Upcoming Events
Visit our events webpage to register for upcoming events, including school staffing design professional learning and site visits, educator professional learning, and free webinars.
On-demand learning is also available on the portal! Educators from principals to team teachers have content available to engage with, and it is included with portal access.
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October and November
10/3 Meet the New Opportunity Culture® Portal: 3:30–4:30 p.m. ET — FREE
10/10 Opportunity Culture® Info Session: 1:00–1:45 p.m. ET — FREE
10/15 Introduction to School Staffing Design with Results: 1:00–3:30 p.m. ET
10/17 Session 1: Planning with A Scripted Curriculum: 3:30–4:00 p.m. ET — FREE
10/24 Session 2: Baking Up Lesson Plans from Scratch: 3:30–4:00 p.m. ET — FREE
11/6 Site Visit: Midland Independent School District, Texas
11/7 Site Visit: Ector County Independent School District, Texas
11/7 Opportunity Culture® Info Session: 1:00–1:45 p.m. ET — FREE
11/13 Introduction to School Staffing Design with Results: 1:00–3:30 p.m. ET
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RESOURCESTools You Need Now
Check out the instructional leadership and excellence resources on the Opportunity Culture® website. This month, principals and team leaders may find the Launch and Lead and Build Team Cohesion sections especially useful.
For all educators, find resources on these elements for achieving instructional excellence that may be especially useful now:
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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, X, Instagram, Facebook, or YouTube—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 low-income students, students of color, and other students whose needs historically 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®.
© 2024 Public Impact®/Opportunity Culture®
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Public Impact, 405 East Main Street, Carrboro, North Carolina 27510, United States
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