Partnership expands access to innovative staffing models in rural Colorado schools

The challenge

There is a teacher shortage in Colorado schools and a critical need to redesign the teaching role to be more sustainable and attractive. In the 2022–23 school year, rural schools in Colorado experienced the most severe impacts of the shortages across the state.

The traditional one-teacher, one-classroom model is not working, as these models demand that educators be all things to all students at all times. As designed, they also  suffer from large amounts of turnover and are increasingly unattractive to potential teachers.  A change needs to happen to better support students and educators.

The approach

Arizona State University’s Next Education Workforce initiative is partnering with Colorado school systems and Colorado educational support organizations to fundamentally redesign how the state’s schools are staffed. The project, Opportunity Now: Next Education Workforce in Colorado, is funded by the Colorado Office of Economic Development and International Trade, and spearheaded by Brent Maddin, executive director of the Next Education Workforce and Andrea LaRocca, senior program manager of the initiative. 

Next Education Workforce staffing models build teams of educators with distributed expertise who share a roster of students. These models create better ways for educators to enter the profession, specialize and advance. Outcomes from implementing team-based models in Arizona are promising: educators are much more satisfied, students are learning more, and schools are better able to recruit and retain educators. At its core, this program aims to improve the working conditions in schools and, as a result, create more favorable conditions into which to recruit new teachers in Colorado, particularly in rural areas. 

Education jobs have relatively high earning potential and strong annual demand, and funding programs that better the working conditions of teachers make it a more attractive role.

Colorado schools interested in launching at least one team of educators can contact LaRocca about how to get involved in a year of strategic planning and support via this new partnership, made possible by a half-million-dollar Opportunity Now Grant Program award.