MLFTC offers budgeting resources for school leaders developing Next Education Workforce models

Arizona State University’s Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College is offering a collection of resources to help schools develop Next Education Workforce models without taking on a slew of new costs.

To build Next Education Workforce models, MLFTC works with schools and other partners to build teams of educators with distributed expertise, with the goal of providing all students with deeper and personalized learning and empowering educators to pursue new opportunities for role-based specialization and advancement. 

“Moving from a more traditional model to a sustainable Next Education Workforce model does not have to create financial stress,” says Brent Maddin, executive director of the Next Education Workforce initiative. “Right now, district and school leaders across the country have the chance to fundamentally change their existing structures by leveraging federal stimulus funds,” Maddin says. Through the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Fund, school districts have access to three years of funding. 

Now is the time for those who want to make the leap from a traditional classroom model to a team-based model, says Maddin. “Leaders interested in making the change should implement a ‘Do Now, Build Toward’ mindset, meaning make high-impact investments now that support a more diverse educator workforce, deeper and personalized learning and better teacher retention rates,” he says.

Developing a Next Education Workforce model means creating new educator roles, compensating educators appropriately for their expertise and creating additional planning time for educators. “All of these things require making trade-offs — shifts in time and money — to remain financially sustainable,” Maddin says. 

Arizona’s largest school district, Mesa Public Schools, is working with MLFTC to build Next Education Workforce models in about a quarter of its 80 schools. Justin Wing, assistant superintendent of human resources at MPS, says that leveraging vacancy dollars has been instrumental in building the models and staying within budget. For example, he says, instead of trying to find four highly qualified teachers for 100 kids, hire three and leverage the vacancy dollars to hire paraprofessionals or several student teachers, bringing more adults with different expertise around learners. 

View the collection to see staffing models, download materials, watch a video and create your own budget. Or, view all resource collections.