Recap from the 2026 Strategic School Staffing Summit

When literacy systems break down, it’s rarely because educators stopped caring. More often, the problem lives in the design and intentionality of our adult systems—how we organize people, time, roles, and professional learning. That’s the lens we’re bringing to our partnership work in Jackson, Mississippi, where we’re supporting leaders in breaking down instructional silos and making student success not just possible, but predictable.

This blog draws on a recent session from Naima Richardson and Reem Ahmed at the Next Education Workforce Strategic School Staffing Summit, sharing how Public Impact and Leading Educators are working with Jackson Public Schools to integrate strategic staffing and professional learning into a coherent system for early literacy.

The Problem Behind the “Problem”

Despite growing knowledge, field understanding, and legislative action around the science of reading, moving literacy in practice and at scale is complex. For many systems, barriers can include:

• Lack of time and purposeful or sustained collaboration structures
• Inconsistent knowledge about evidence-based literacy practices at all levels
• Gaps in materials
• Budget constraints that limit teaming options
• Difficulty creating sustainable staffing models for hard-to-staff schools

As Naima Richardson underscored, these aren’t problems of will; they’re problems of systems.

When we treat staffing, coaching, curriculum, and PD as separate projects, we unintentionally create silos that make it hard for good instruction to take root and spread.”

To tackle this, Jackson Public Schools is partnering with Leading Educators and Public Impact through an Inspired Teaching, Exceptional Learning implementation pilot grant, leveraging complementary strengths. Public Impact focuses on strategic staffing and the Opportunity Culture model—using data and research to creatively solve staffing and role-design challenges. Leading Educators focuses on professional learning systems—designing coherent, curriculum-based PD and coaching that reaches from classrooms to networks to the district office.

Together, we’re asking: How can we align staffing and professional learning so that teachers, coaches, and leaders are all rowing in the same direction for literacy?

Our work in Jackson began with five pilot elementary schools, with 17 more schools designing models this year. By next fall, all 22 elementary schools in the district will be implementing some form of this integrated model.

Discovery and Design: Listening Before Solving

We started with a discovery phase—not with a pre-baked model—to design in context and tap into the many strengths already in place.

In the discovery phase, we listened to teachers, leaders, and district teams about what was working and what wasn’t. We also reviewed student data, the implementation of high-quality instructional materials (HQIM), and existing staffing patterns. Finally, we identified where educators and students were thriving and where the system was breaking down

From there, we co-designed district-level parameters (e.g., role definitions, stipend structures, time expectations) and school-specific plans, so each campus could align the model to its own data, staffing realities, and needs. Importantly, multiple central office departments were at the table: the deputy superintendent, Teaching and Learning, HR, Finance, and Talent. That cross-functional design work is essential if you want implementation not to collapse at the first scheduling or budget constraint.

The Teaming Model: MCLs and Reach Associates

A core feature of the work in Jackson is a teaming model that pairs two Opportunity Culture® roles.

A Multi-Classroom Leader (MCL)™ is an accomplished teacher with a track record of strong student growth who:

• Continues to teach
• Leads and coaches a small team of teachers
• Facilitates PLCs and content cycles
• Models instruction and provides real-time feedback

A Reach Associate is an advanced paraprofessional who:

• Supports small-group instruction
• Covers lower-leverage tasks (lunch, recess, transitions, some whole-group follow-through) to free MCL time
• Can replace less effective coverage models like long-term subs

This model is not about simply adding another adult for “coverage.” It’s about designing roles so that the best teachers’ reach is extended to more students, every teacher on the team has consistent coaching and modeling, and there is a clear, intentional structure for feedback, collaboration, and shared practice.

In other words, the staffing model itself is designed to multiply instructional expertise rather than isolate it in single classrooms.

Pairing Professional Learning With Staffing

Staffing alone doesn’t change instruction. For that, the professional learning has to be just as intentional and coherent as the team structure.

Reem Ahmed, senior consultant at Public Impact, shares:

We really want to make sure that we’re talking to multiple levels of stakeholders and figuring out not just what the topics are for learning, but the system that will best support the professional learning for multiple stakeholders.”

Here’s how Leading Educators and Public Impact are aligning supports for MCLs and their teams:

1. Summer Institute: Before launching the model, we convened principals, MCLs, and Reach Associates for a summer institute to build a shared understanding of the new roles and teaming structures.
   
   This served as a space to clarify expectations and routines across roles. We also began building relationships and a common language for literacy instruction and coaching.
2. Ongoing, Curriculum-Aligned PD: Throughout the year, Leading Educators provides design and facilitation for PD days focused on literacy content aligned with the district’s HQIM, held every other month.
   
   Professional learning cycles support MCLs and teachers to study a specific routine or practice (e.g., encoding routines). They plan for implementation. Then, they practice and debrief in PLC spaces. These cycles are designed to give educators multiple “at-bats” with the same focus, so practice can actually change.
3. Coaching and Feedback Rounds: Public Impact supports the team leadership side of the MCL role by building a coaching toolkit for MCLs (observation, feedback, modeling, facilitation). They also support feedback rounds to check whether staffing structures are working as intended and adjust schedules, roles, and responsibilities when reality doesn’t match the plan. This helps MCLs address not just curriculum and instruction but also the classroom environment and team development.
   
   Meanwhile, district instructional coaches join instructional rounds and planning so that their work is not replaced, but aligned and elevated. This also builds a sustainable system that can continue after external partners step back.

Early Learnings: Tensions and Breakthroughs

As with any real change, there have been tensions to manage. First is the peer-to-coach identity shift.

MCLs often step from being colleagues to becoming coaches and leaders on the same campus. That requires clear role definition, support with difficult conversations, and time to build trust and norms with their teams.

Selecting and supporting Reach Associates has also proved to be complex. The Reach role only works if these are truly advanced paras who can handle small-group instruction and independent responsibilities. During planning, that demands thoughtful selection criteria and training that goes beyond logistics into instructional practice.

Finally, ensuring coherence across the system takes time and collective buy-in. Everyone—from paras, to teachers, to district coaches—needs to understand not just what routines we’re using in literacy, but why.

Why this encoding routine? Why this feedback structure? How does this lesson design connect to the science of reading and our shared vision for students?

Despite the challenges, the work is revealing powerful lessons about how strategic staffing and professional learning can reinforce each other rather than operate in parallel.

Consider Your Context

If you’re considering similar work, reflect on a few questions we’re asking ourselves and partners:

• How are we using a second adult in classrooms: for coverage, or as an instructional multiplier?
• Where are our adult systems (roles, schedules, PD, coaching) breaking down to enable greater literacy? How might the current ways of working unintentionally undermine literacy instruction?
• Do our staffing models and professional learning actually point in the same direction, or are they solving different problems on different timelines?

Breaking instructional silos isn’t about adding more initiatives; it’s about aligning the initiatives we already have so that excellent instruction becomes the norm, not the exception—and student success becomes predictable.

If you want to learn more or explore partnership around similar opportunities in your context, get in touch with us.

A brief note: AI tools were used to summarize the major themes of the conversation transcript, preserving as much of the discussion as possible while synthesizing the dialogue for busy readers. Rest assured, all final editing decisions were made by real people! Photo courtesy of Jackson Public Schools via X.