States should offer grant opportunities to financially support districts that want to explore strategic staffing models, particularly to cover technical assistance costs and supplemental funding for teacher leader roles.

• In North Carolina, the Advanced Teaching Roles grant program supports districts that want to try new staffing models. These funds support districts and their work with partners to help redesign staffing structures and deliver training for teachers taking on new leadership roles. Due to North Carolina’s lack of flexibility in its funding formula, the state provides supplemental funding to help support the additional pay for multi-classroom leaders through this program.
• Texas’s Teacher Incentive Allotment (TIA) program provides districts that have a validated evaluation system with ongoing funding to recruit and retain teachers to work in high-need schools. Some districts use TIA funds, which can reach up to $17,000 for master teachers, in conjunction with strategic staffing models to pay teachers more for serving in leadership roles.

States can give districts opportunities to apply for state policy waivers. One way to do this is by creating an “innovation zone” waiver process that takes districts through the required steps of requesting a waiver, including developing a well-detailed plan that includes a set of results that can be measured at the end of the waiver period. States should establish clear guardrails to assess how districts are leveraging staffing flexibility to improve student achievement. States should also collect data on which policies districts are requesting waivers for and assess any impacts along the way. If the districts are not advancing student learning and improving effective teacher retention with these models, the flexibilities should be revoked.

• Slightly less than half of states offer some type of waiver process, like Innovation Districts in Texas, where districts in good standing and with a clear plan can try innovative approaches. In the Lone Star State, a local district’s board of trustees must approve the plan, whereas in other states, the department of education or state board of education approves the plan.
• At a minimum, states should review potentially restrictive policies and either modify them or provide an opportunity for waivers for districts to reimagine the teaching role. Currently 14 states set class size minimums or student-teacher ratios but do not have waivers for these laws.

Thinking differently about staffing models and how teachers work together takes time and effort. Provide opportunities and support for districts willing to step outside the status quo and collaborate with each other. One approach is to establish a community of practice that addresses topics such as designing staffing structures, developing professional learning, and incorporating high-quality instructional materials. States can accomplish this by creating a network of districts implementing strategic staffing models to share key learnings, offer best practices, and observe each other.

• In North Carolina, grantees from the Advanced Teaching Roles initiative, along with any interested districts, participate in a district network led by BEST NC, a nonprofit organization. (This type of support could also be offered by the state.) Districts come together three to four times a year to share what they are learning and support each other during the transition to using Advanced Teaching Roles in their staffing model. Using an intermediary partner has provided additional capacity to the state to be able to convene and support adopting districts.

States should require program evaluations for any grant opportunities they offer to districts. While early research shows that some strategic staffing models have a positive impact on student learning, teacher satisfaction, and teacher retention, we need more investigation to better understand the long-term outcomes among different approaches and to continuously improve the models and results for students. If states create systems to gather data about staffing design characteristics and outcomes, they can enable more nuanced analysis to determine what matters most.

• In Texas, Ector County Independent School District (ECISD) contracted with Texas Tech to conduct an external evaluation of its Opportunity Culture model each year for three years, so that ECISD could continue to learn from implementation and gauge if the model was leading to its ultimate goal: increased teacher retention and student learning.

There are a number of teacher preparation models that states currently leverage, including teacher residency programs, teacher registered apprenticeship models, and “grown your own” programs. (See Defining Types of Clinical Practice to learn more.) Combining residency or apprentice programs with strategic staffing models, like US PREP’s model, can be a win-win by strengthening the teacher pipeline, attracting talent to schools where it is needed, and providing schools with additional human capital to meet student needs.

• New Mexico established high-quality teacher residency programs to give aspiring teachers more practice time in classrooms and to bolster staffing in classrooms. They guaranteed teacher residents a $35,000 salary while they train to become teachers in exchange for a commitment to serve the sponsoring districts for three years. This type of program could be leveraged to support strategic staffing models.

Teacher leaders need the content knowledge and skills to achieve superior student outcomes, as well as the ability to coach other teachers—it’s critical to their success. States can provide district leaders with data to identify teachers who consistently achieve extraordinary student results. States could also provide guidance on how to select teachers who have strong student outcomes and the potential to successfully coach other teachers, as these are two separate but important skill sets.

Strategic staffing should not be seen as just another initiative. These models need to be coupled with other state academic initiatives, such as efforts to implement high-quality instructional materials, improve reading instruction, and develop teacher pipelines. It’s not either/or, but rather both/and. States should think about how these models, as well as additional staff working in teams, could help teachers better accelerate student outcomes and improve teacher satisfaction.