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Carlsbad Municipal School District

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Opportunity Culture® Implementation

Opportunity Culture® Implementation

A woman with long brown hair smiles at the camera, wearing a black shirt.

Director of Opportunity Culture

Ms. Mindy Rogers

mindy.rogers@carlsbadschools.net

 

Carlsbad Municipal Schools is implementing Opportunity Culture® models – innovative staffing models designed to extend the reach of excellent educators to more students, while also improving student outcomes. Through this approach, teachers gain meaningful career advancement opportunities, higher pay within sustainable budgets, and on-the-job professional development through collaborative teaching teams.

This initiative is made possible through a partnership with Public Impact®​, the national founder of the Opportunity Culture®​ initiative. As part of this initiative, districts create robust career ladders that allow educators to grow professionally without leaving the classroom.

In CMSD, that ladder begins with advanced paraprofessionals called Reach Associate™ roles and leads up to Multi-Classroom Leader®​ roles – high-performing teachers who lead small teams of teachers, Reach Associate™ roles, and paid, yearlong teacher residents. Multi-Classroom Leader® roles​ provide daily coaching, support, and collaborative planning that strengthens instruction across classrooms. These roles include pay supplements funded within existing school budgets, ensuring sustainability.

Each participating school designs its own Opportunity Culture®​ structure to best meet the needs of its students and staff. The result is improved student achievement, stronger teacher retention, and a more empowered educational workforce.

Teachers grow. Students thrive. Our whole community moves forward

  • Six certified OC™ schools™
    with additional schools designing OC™ models
  • 45 OC™ educators
    95 educators receiving coaching and supports
  • Over 3,500 students reached

 

Multi-Classroom Leader® educators​ share how Opportunity Culture®​ roles support one another within CMSD.

  • Multi-Classroom Leader® (MCL™) Role

    The Multi-Classroom Leader® role teaches for part of the day and leads a small team of teachers, paraprofessionals, and teacher residents in the same grade or subject. The MCL™ educator co-plans, leads teacher data analysis, co-teaches, models, coaches, and gives feedback. The MCL™ educator shares accountability for all student data with the team teachers they support.

    Master Team Reach Teacher™ (MTRT™) Role

    An MTRT™ educator serves on a Multi-Classroom Leader® team, directly teaching more students than usual, but typically without raising instructional group sizes. MTRT™ educators also help the MCL™ educator lead a larger team (e.g., by coaching part of the team) and/or reach significantly more students than other teachers. With guidance from the team leader, MTRT™ educators plan and deliver instruction for multiple classes in a school where students rotate between face-to-face learning with the teacher and digital or offline learning supervised by an advanced paraprofessional known as a Reach Associate™ paraprofessional or a teacher resident, and take on leadership opportunities.

    Team Reach Teacher™ (TRT™)  Role

    The TRT™ educator directly teaches more students than usual, but typically without raising instructional group sizes. With guidance from the team leader,  the TRT™ educator plans and delivers instruction for multiple classes in a school where students rotate between face-to-face learning with the teacher and digital or offline learning supervised by an advanced paraprofessional known as a Reach Associate™ paraprofessional or a teacher resident. While one class of students is with a Reach Associate™ paraprofessional, the TRT™ educator teaches another class of students, focusing on delivering personalized and enriched instruction.

    Reach Associate™ (RA™) Role

    The RA™ role, an advanced classroom aide position, provides both instructional and non-instructional support to a team of teachers, as designated by the team’s MCL™ educator, with a focus on providing small-group tutoring and supervising students on projects, skills practice, and digital learning during classroom rotations. The RA™ paraprofessional also works closely with the teacher to complete various administrative tasks and non-instructional paperwork and manages procedures and supervises student behavior during transitions, lunch, recess, assemblies, and other unstructured activities, and while teacher(s) deliver instruction. All activities are directed by the team leader and teachers on the team

  • How will Opportunity Culture® positions and stipends be funded?

    Each school develops its own unique campus design and its campus budget (and staffing) to fund the pay supplements for these positions. Funding should be sustainable for the long term, which the district and schools work in collaboration to ensure.

    Are Opportunity Culture® positions open only to the teachers at Opportunity Culture® campuses?

    No. Any teacher at any school can apply for one of these positions at any other school, as can teachers from outside of Carlsbad. District administrators will create the criteria and conduct behavioral event interviews of candidates for the OC™ positions. Principals will do the hiring from the pool of approved candidates.

    What does a typical day look like?

    A typical day for a Multi-Classroom Leader® (MCL™) role could be teaching their students in the morning, then working with their team colleagues on their campus in the afternoon by co-teaching, modeling, observing, and providing feedback, or meeting with the team to plan or analyze student data, as well as regular meetings with the school's instructional team of leaders. The MCL™ role gets significantly higher compensation for taking on that additional responsibility of co-teaching, coaching, etc. Multi-Classroom Leader® educators are responsible for coaching and support, not evaluations of their team members.

    Will the MCL® educators receive training?

    Yes, MCL® training takes place each summer and is ongoing to help prepare for the responsibilities of leading a team. The proven success of OC™ models comes from the results seen when teachers are part of a team and given daily support.

    How would a team be formed?

    Each Opportunity Culture® school has its own design team charged with creating an effective design to meet their needs. We have seen teams formed by subject, grade level, or multiple grade levels. It can also be outside of core subject areas. Those are decisions made by the campus team