The Opportunity Schools Case Study

Episode Summary:
Season 2 hosts Noelle and Kyriako make their debut with a topic near and dear to both of them—hiring teachers.  Listen now as they dive into a new Case Study on the Opportunity Schools initiative within CPS. Special guests include Ben Felton—Executive Director of Teacher Recruitment, Pathways, and Equity Strategy for CPS, and Jasmine Thurmond—Principal at King Academy of Social Justice.

Episode Resources:
Opportunity Schools Case Study
http://www.cps.edu/opportunityschools

Episode Bell:
Richards Career Academy

Teacher Appreciation Schools:
Hamilton Elementary
Randolph Elementary

©Chicago Public Schools 2021

Transcript

Noelle Jones: 0:09

Kyrikao, let me give you a quick agree/disagree.

Kyriako Anastasiadis: 0:17

Go for it.

Noelle Jones: 0:18

Teachers are the leading in-school factor in determining school achievement.

Kyriako Anastasiadis: 0:25

It's not an easy one, but I'm gonna have to lean towards"agree."

Noelle Jones: 0:29

Okay. So let's set the stage a little bit heading into the 2016-17 school year. Chicago Public Schools was facing persistent problems with staffing schools across the city. Many schools, most often in low-income neighborhoods on the Chicago's South and West Sides were struggling to recruit and retain teachers. So enter Opportunity Schools, an initiative launched by the CPS Talent Office under the larger"Teach Chicago" umbrella to address the talent challenges such as the teacher recruitment and retention piece that I just mentioned.

Kyriako Anastasiadis: 1:08

Opportunity Schools focused on identifying educators to teach in high needs schools by providing individualized recruiting—think the match.com of CPS, to ensure candidates find a school and role that is a good fit. And once in the building teachers in their early years are provided with day-to-day support by mentor teachers and instructional coaches.

Noelle Jones: 1:31

So Social Justice High School where I teach is an Opportunity School. The program has grown year after year, and now there's a new case study out. That's been produced by CPS in partnership with education. First, that looks at the impact of this initiative. Kyriako and I have had a chance to look at this case study—the results to date look pretty good.

Kyriako Anastasiadis: 1:55

So we thought we'd start this season with a topic near and dear to Noelle and I—hiring teachers. To join us to talk about Opportunity Schools, the case study, and more we have two guests; first up is Ben Felton an executive Director Teacher Recruitment, Pathways and Equity Strategy for the CPS Talent Office. Ben, welcome.

Ben Felton: 2:15

Thanks so much for having me. So grateful to meet you and for the work that you guys do everyday with our students.

Kyriako Anastasiadis: 2:20

Thank you very much for that compliment, Ben. So then did we miss anything in this setup? What's your Opportunity Schools elevator pitch?

Ben Felton: 2:28

Sure. So the opportunity schools initiative launched in 2016 with the goal of providing targeted hiring and professional development support to some of the districts historically hardest to staff schools, meaning those that had struggled with recruiting and retaining teachers. And it's really become an essential part of the CPS talent strategy to promote equity across the district. So heading into the 2016-17 school year, we knew we had this sort of intractable challenge that a lot of districts have. A lot of these schools, mostly on the city's South and West Sides were struggling to recruit and attract teachers. So we launched an initiative called"Teach Chicago," which is the Talent Offices comprehensive effort to address these challenges. To attract, to retain, to train, to develop—highly qualified and diverse teachers for every classroom in the city. Teach Chicago programs are focused on providing additional support for hard to staff schools and high-need subject areas like special education and bilingual education. And so as part of Teach Chicago, we started with the Opportunity Schools. We started with a cohort of 50 neighborhood schools and each year since the cohort's grown. And in that time, we've cut the vacancy rates in those schools in half, we've increased teacher retention of early career teachers—those in their first through third years by 46%. And as someone who's been hands-on with the program since its inception five years ago, I'm really proud of the positive impact that it's having on classrooms. You know, like you said, because we're really excited about the results, we're releasing a case study about our approach. Our hope is that other school districts across the country, other philanthropic organizations can learn about our approach and the progress that we've made staffing schools in low-income communities. Sorry, if that ended up being like the freight elevator pitch.

Kyriako Anastasiadis: 4:17

I like that,"the freight elevator pitch" that was good. Starting up anything is pretty difficult. It's not easy. Your own business, a new program at school, even being a sponsor for a club at a school. What did getting this initiative off the ground look like? Where did you start? What are some of the struggles that you faced early on and how did you overcome?

Ben Felton: 4:39

So, you know, the most important thing for me was to go out and talk to teachers and principals about this challenge. You know, we were able to pull together a list of schools that we thought had, you know, a lot of vacant positions and higher teacher attrition. And, you know, I know that any policy or strategy calls that, you know, someone makes from some downtown office in the loop—they have to have the input of folks on the ground. It's my belief that CPS administrators just have to get proximate to intimately understand the challenges. And so that's really what I did. I spent Fall of 2016 on a listening tour and talked to principals and teachers, and really trying to understand what hiring recruitment looks like in CPS and trying to figure out the best ways for us to, you know, to ultimately support those schools. So the thing that we heard the most from our partners in the field, especially principals, was support with teacher vacancies, you know, so that led to our first strategy, really the centralized recruitment based on individual school's need. As my colleague, Ellen likes to put it, you know, we, we do play this sort of match.com of sorts between schools and teacher candidates, uh, which is a really key part of the work for us is to build these like strong and trusting relationships with Opportunity Schools so that we can like be an effective matchmaker and find really great teachers that'll create a really, you know, an excellent fit. So the more we know about schools, their needs, their priorities, the more likely we'll be to identify the right candidate for them in the school. You know, one of the things that I want to be really clear about is that this strategy is certainly not about replacing educators that were already in these schools. That is a strategy that we are certainly uninterested in. The fact that there are such wonderful educators in these schools. We realized early on in the game that like, it's one of our greatest assets that we had. And that a lot of the strategies that we pursue are about leveraging their expertise to either attract or support new teachers to the building.

Noelle Jones: 6:33

Speaking of all of that support, being at an Opportunity School and in the building, and after having read the report, I can appreciate the systems and structures that you have in place for all of the support. So I get to kind of experience it and see it firsthand, which certainly wasn't a possibility for me 20 years ago when I came into CPS. So I guess my question is, how did you guys make that choice or really get down to this kind of—being able to make all of the supports, the supports for the principals? It seems like there's such a load taken off of some of the things that they have to do and being"the match.com" and vetting candidates for them, and then providing the support. Giving teachers who are in the building, the opportunity to showcase their talents and their gifts to new staff so that they'll stay. How did you like structure that and bring that through the recruitment talent office? What's sparked that?

Ben Felton: 7:40

Let me just tell you a quick story about it. So originally we weren't necessarily committed to just doing recruitment. It was on that listening tour that I was talking about where I would talk to principals and I would say like, you know, what's your biggest challenge? And they would say, you know, well, my math position's been vacant for the last month, and it's really hard for me to get instruction that way, right? Like either, you know, I have to have a Sub or I have to ask another math teacher to push in, or I have an assistant principal or a principal has to teach. And so all of those have like real costs to school. Well, you know, I'd been hearing this over and over again and just sort of jotted down in my notebook like"this school needs a math teacher." And I happened to go to the, uh, CPS hiring event and happened to meet a math teacher. We started sort of talking shop and I was like, Hey, have you ever heard of this school? And they said, no. And I was like, well, give me your resume and I'll pass it along. I scanned the resume, sent it. And then the next morning there was an interview scheduled. And by afternoon they'd hired the teacher and they had loved the teacher and a light bulb just went off to me. This is a very easy way for us to like, kind of build in supports and structures to start advantages goals that like historically just don't get a whole lot of resumes, you know? So we just realized that the recruitment piece was like just the highest leverage strategy to improve schools. We just found pretty early that there was a lot of really great teachers who wanted to do this work. They had the right mindsets, they had the right talents. They care deeply about serving students and families and communities. So, you know, out of that our early offer program was born, which has just been a cornerstone of the progress that we've made both in Opportunity Schools and sort of district wide. We knew we'd have vacant positions, because these schools had more vacant positions, but just across any 50 schools, you're going to have vacant teaching positions. And essentially we said we were meeting great teachers. And we just said like, look, if you commit to teach in one of these 50 schools, we'll hire you now—and this was in January or February. And then come spring, you know, once principals knew where their vacant positions were going to be, we would then be in a position to, you know, shop that great math teacher around to the six schools that had a math teaching. And because we worked really hard to get to know the principals and know what their needs were and know what their sort of school's focuses, where we could especially kind of nudge them into a position where we thought they'd be a really great fit. That sort of process of centralizing. A lot of the teacher recruitment for us was a critical early learning because, um, it's both more efficient, right? Like if you have a situation where like a great math teacher, a great special education teacher applies to three schools and they never hear back from two principals because they're busy and other, the second place principal at another school, you know, there's a good chance we might just lose you. Right. So it was our way to sort of like convert more efficiently, but then through opportunity schools, make it a whole lot more equitable. To say, like, if you want to go find another jobs elsewhere in the district, fine, but if you want our help and our help, like supporting you to find an excellent fit and connecting you with some really great schools—then come be part of this program, no. Well, to your question about like, you know, how we went from there, you know, we started with recruitment and then, you know, like I said, we, we were eager to start keeping these people and the districts just done incredible work over the past 10 years in attracting really wonderful principals. And, you know, the principals were hungry to sort of like think through how do I sort of create the right structures in place to keep people. And, and we think a lot of that has to do with the principal/teacher relationship, but then also we were able to marshal resources to launch a mentoring program to make sure that every first year teacher had someone to speak to. And a lot of our first year teachers have instructional coaches that are working with them. All of this is sort of designed around like a comprehensive suite of supports for new teachers to CPS and new teachers period. Even though we do recruit a lot of veteran teachers as well.

Noelle Jones: 11:17

Yeah. I just think that's the best part. I understand recruitment, you gotta have that, but just on the teacher end of things. I think that is the best part to be able to be a brand new teacher and not feel alone, not feel like"I kind of don't know what I'm doing, but I don't want to say, I don't know what I'm doing necessarily," and to have a support, to be able a safe support, to be able to express that, and then still get the help and the support that you need.

Ben Felton: 11:45

Yeah. I mean, teaching can be a really lonely job, especially when you're struggling, right? Because you work so hard and you care so much and, and, you know, teaching is one of those jobs. It's probably the job that I can think of that has like the steepest learning curve, right? Your first year, your first two years are really hard. And we see higher attrition in those years because if you feel like you're not successful, it's really hard to keep going, right? And so it's important to try to get those supports up in, you know, in the earliest stages of a teacher's career.

Kyriako Anastasiadis: 12:12

So on point with that. I know when I was at Northeastern, I did all the classes, all the great professors and we had all the assignments, but once you get in front of kids, Whoa. No classroom, no textbook can prepare you for what's going to happen. Absolutely not. So, yeah, having a support or havin—for me, I always had a colleague. I had a colleague that I could always turn to and we just talked. You know, afterschool, we just met up, how was your day? How was my day? We had some of the same students,"Hey, what's working with you, what's not working with you?" And just, we just talked about our day and that was very, very helpful, very good mental, emotional, um, recharging of the batteries for the next day. I wanted to go back because I saw it in that case study early offers to not lose talent. I think that is a fantastic idea. Now, when I read early offers, I'm thinking, oh, they were probably offering them in probably April/May, because I've been a part of some hiring processes. And I know some stories where sometimes they're not offered until August or the, the interviewing didn't start until late June, right after 4th of July. And anyone that's in teaching knows that not only are you late, but like, it almost feels like a lost cause in some cases. But you say early offers in January. Wow. So why so early, and have you had anyone ever bail out on you?

Ben Felton: 13:41

Well, I guess so early because we start meeting teachers, right? Like our team is, and you know, there's a real opportunity cost associated with principals has like run a really effective hiring process and have to source candidates and have to post positions and have to. You know, every minute that they spend on the recruitment process is a minute, then they're not spending on their schools. So we have staff that are specifically focused on these year round. And in that way they get deeper working relationships. We aspire not to be some nameless, faceless bureaucracy downtown, that's going to like want their report. Like we're, we're there to help we're there to serve, and because the staff is singularly focused on the schools—the outcomes are better. Um, you know, asset based recruiting is super important. Uh, you know, I spend a lot of my time, especially in the first year or two of this, like correcting others, that these aren't bad schools, that these aren't struggling schools. These are great schools with great teachers and leaders. So we're really cognizant of trying to emphasize the strength of these schools, because people want to join a winning team. We also recruit people that want to be there. This isn't about persuading people that don't want to work on the South or West Side to do so, right? Like there aren't any tricks. There aren't any gimmicks. There isn't any bait and switch. It's like, either you want to do the work or you don't. And we found that there are a lot of people that do want to do that work and that's our responsibility. I guess, you know, if we were, if we were meeting them in September, we'd do it in September. Right? So like as soon as possible, and we work really hard to kind of keep them engaged from, you know, January, February, March, and, you know, sometimes we'll meet people over the summer too.

Kyriako Anastasiadis: 15:10

Of course. It's not always 100% perfectly you plan, but it's good that you get the ball rolling. And I think that's a very underestimated approach. Maybe some people overlook. I know my principal, my former principal now, she would always say, if you're gonna, you know, if you know that you're not going to be here, please let us know. Now they want to get on the ball right away.

Ben Felton: 15:31

At scale, part of what we were able to do with opportunity schools is like, know that in this cohort of 50, like we'll have at least 10 math teachers, you know, or we'll have at least 15 bilingual teachers. So let's go find 15. So we became really aggressive and, you know, we've been doing this for what, four or five years now. And we, we, we've never had a teacher go unhired. So we know that, and our principals are a pretty discerning group, right? Like they're not going to hire people just because we extended an offer to them. We never wanted to take away the authority and autonomy from a principal for making a decision about who's in their school. Really our job is to sort of increase the supply and increase the number of options for principals in traditionally hard to staff schools. And if they hire our candidates wonderful. And if they hire somebody else that's fine with us too.

Noelle Jones: 16:18

So on the website, on the Opportunity School's webpage, it says that opportunity schools are Equity in Action. So how do they center equity?

Ben Felton: 16:29

You know, great teachers really matter. And research consistently shows that teachers are, are one of the most important factors in determining student achievement and other really important outcomes. Right? So the most important thing that we can do in the Talent Office is make sure that we're providing schools with outstanding teachers. And, and the fact of the matter is because of decades of historical and racial inequities, some of our neighborhood schools just have a harder time attracting excellent teachers for their positions, right? So we knew that this distribution of teacher talent was not equitable, that it was contributing to some of the opportunity gaps in education quality, and that we needed to try to do something about it. And we're proud of the results, right? As I mentioned before, we've increased retention rates for early career teachers from 56% in 2016-17 to 82% in 20-21. We've reduced the vacancy rates by about half in that same period and of the more than 800 teachers that we've worked to hire through this initiative, more than half of them identify as Black or Latix, which is also critical to us. You know we still have work to do, but Noelle, to your question, we think results in a more equitable district.

Kyriako Anastasiadis: 17:44

Let's take a break and we'll be right back with our second guest to speak on Opportunity Schools. You're listening to the CPS Teach Chicago Podcast.

Student 1: 17:58

This episode is brought to you by Ms Stoilova. She's a great teacher because she makes learning easy and fun. She always offers you help and is never afraid to help you bring your grade up. She is one of my favorite teachers I've had.

Student 2: 17:58

I want to shout out Ms. Gibson at Randolph Elementary, who teaches fourth grade because she helped me get on grade level with my reading.

Student 3: 17:58

This episode is brought to you by Mr. Loredo, a great teacher who has taught me so much. He believes in all of his students, is fair, and never fails to make class fun. I'm so lucky to have class with him. Student 4: I want to shout out Ms. Hinton who teaches fifth grade now. She helped me stay on track with my math and become a better mathematician. Student 5: Mr. Hoeft is one of the best teachers I've ever had. He always makes everything very easy, clear, and fun. And he seems to really care about his students and the information he's giving them. He is a valuable addition to our school environment. And I hope he stays a teacher for a long time.

Noelle Jones: 18:56

Welcome back everybody to the CPS Teach Chicago Podcast. We're going to continue our conversation about Opportunity Schools and we have a new guest principal Jasmine Thurmond. Welcome. Can yourself?

Jasmine Thurmond: 19:11

Sure? Thank you so much for the introduction. I am Jasmine Thurmond. I'm the principal of King Academy of Social Justice. We are a small but mighty school in the Englewood Community and I am in my sixth year as principal here.

Kyriako Anastasiadis: 19:27

Welcome.

Noelle Jones: 19:28

Yes.

Jasmine Thurmond: 19:28

Thank you so much for having me.

Noelle Jones: 19:31

It has the Opportunity Schools impacted the logistics of your job as a principal.

Jasmine Thurmond: 19:36

The opportunity schools have impacted my role as principal tremendously. I remember in my first year, just the headache of trying to locate candidates and then vette those candidates for positions and, and whatnot. And what's all of the other instructional and operational demands on me. It just seemed like the process of finding solid talent was just a thorn in my side. And it was just a never ending challenge. And so being a part of the opportunity schools has really lifted that, that burden in terms of having to do so much work to find great candidates, because they do all of that heavy lifting for me.

Kyriako Anastasiadis: 20:28

You know Ben earlier was telling us, you know, how Opportunitiy Schools—there are four strategies and the first one was recruitment and how that's a really really important—how they play"the match.com" of CPS. I think that's a great analogy. What does"the match. com" of CPS feel like from your perspective as a principal?

Jasmine Thurmond: 20:49

Well, it definitely feels like. So(chuckles) thinking about that match.com um, analogy, it makes me think about like Tindr versus like match.com.

Kyriako Anastasiadis: 21:02

Tinder.

Jasmine Thurmond: 21:04

So when we think about Tindr, Tindr is often that swipe left or right. And it's really fast moving. I don't think people perceive longevity in relationships with Tindr. When you think about match.com and the science behind it, right? The science behind it is all about longevity. The science behind it is around compatibility and actually like finding your groove. And so that's what the Opportunity Schools and their matching of talent to my school's really feels like. The talent that they've sent my way—it's been absolutely phenomenal. They are able to vette a candidate and say, you know what? This person would do great at king academy because I know the principal, but I also know the culture in the school, right? And so that's something that I can't do when I am betting candidates, because I'm just looking at their resumes, right? But they do, they do that, that heavy lifting that, um, really allows my time to be even more impactful because when I am spending time with the candidate, it's the candidate who, um, already has a lot in common with me which just makes my work. And my team's work much easier.

Kyriako Anastasiadis: 22:27

Because sometimes you have a candidate that like, you look through, it looks good on a resume, but then you meet. You're like,"Oh, this isn't really the match." It's like, all that is taken care of. So you're just getting already, you know, five candidates. And they're all really great instead of going through 15 or 20. And it's like, you know, you're saving time, the energy, all of that. Yeah. That's fantastic. You know, just real quick, cause you brought up culture. How has Opportunity Schools impacted the work culture at your school?

Jasmine Thurmond: 22:53

I'll give you an example. I don't typically like to hire people just based on what university they went to or how smart I think they are. Um, their intellect does play a role, but it is the passion. It's the tenacity. It's the teamwork. Those are characteristics that really matter to me and they matter to my team when we are looking for talent. Because what we know is you gotta have passion to be able to do the work for the long-term. Right? You gotta have grit because this work is pretty challenging.

Kyriako Anastasiadis: 23:32

Sorry, grit. I was going to add that in there. Grit is huge. I learned that one from early on, you got to have grit,

Jasmine Thurmond: 23:40

You got to have grit. Like there's no way around it. And then last but not least as new teacher, you got to know when you kick it up into high gear, because this is a stronger suit of yours and your team needs you. But you've also got to know when to fall back and lean on the expertise of your teammates to really take you through to the end. And so those are the key characteristics that I look for. And so when I reached out to Ben, or when I reach out to Ellen, or anyone else in their office, they already know those are the top three characteristics that I'm looking for. That's been the greatest thing because even after a teacher has been in my building for maybe, you know, a year and they get on the hiring committee, they're very eager to spread the word like,"Hey, yeah, you might enjoy it here—but you got to have passion, you got to have grit, and you gotta be a team player."

Noelle Jones: 24:39

That's a perfect segue to go right back to support. You know what I mean? When you, when you get you, you get your vetted candidates and they come in. And as we, I have been reading in the, um, in the case study about the overwhelming amount of support that not only that principals are getting, but that the young, you know, the teachers that are coming in, what they're getting and then using the talent and the veterans that you have to want to keep them to keep them, you want to keep—keep your best. So can you explain how some of the retention strategies for principals listed in the case study have impacted your school?

Jasmine Thurmond: 25:18

Oh, absolutely. So every new teacher in my building gets a mentor. The great thing though, is being a part of the Opportunity Schools, it allows for teachers to receive training on how to be a mentor. And that is absolutely phenomenal because oftentimes we just throw mentors into the bucket and we don't even realize that they may be a good teacher, but they don't know how to mentor folks, right? So having that mentoring in place has been great, not only for providing support to new teachers, but also helping them feel welcomed, helping them to navigate the building politics because let's admit it, every building has its politics, right? And so, you know, by, by pairing them with the veteran person in the building, they're able to understand things a bit better. Um, they don't have as many of the technical challenges. They're just able to navigate the year much better. Um, in addition, some of the other retention strategies that really work well—and I actually swear by these, we learned, uh, so, let me go back. Being a part of the opportunity schools means once per every couple of months, uh, the principals and APS at schools, we have, where we learn about either retention, strategies, recruitment strategies, hiring strategies, things along those lines. So one of the things we learned about was having two by two conversations where on a regular cadence, you check in not just with your new teachers, but all of your teachers around two things that are going great for them. And two things that are not going so well for them. There are two by twos because they're really short. So these conversations should not be more than 15 minutes, which makes it manageable, right? But it also allows you as the school leader to kind of pick and choose, oh, like, oh, these two things I can, I can fix these really quickly. Let me do this. Or that. Sometimes teachers don't realize how quickly you can fix something that's a challenge for them. And as a principal, just eliminating those things—that's one less frustrating experience for teachers. It makes them happy believe it or not. Um, another thing is we plan out our calendar for the year and on that calendar, um, we add things like the two by two conversations. But we also add things such as joy days—days where the goal is for everyone in the building to feel joy. We actually schedule these and it's strategic how we schedule them because we schedule them at key times in the year where burnout is most frequent last but not least I do something called stay conversations. So stay conversation is really where you have conversations with teachers, essentially getting them to commit to staying. That conversation allows you to get into your teacher's head, right? So because sometimes people will commit to staying, but you can tell like they're a little iffy, but if you never have that conversation, you'd never know.

Kyriako Anastasiadis: 28:46

And those are tough conversations. And I think some people try to avoid them maybe, but they're tough yet you need it. And in the end, usually turn out to be pretty, pretty good conversations.

Jasmine Thurmond: 28:56

They turn out. So for me, I've always found that they turn out to be great conversations because usually the people who it's not a good fit for, they feel that it's not a good fit, right? And so when I have those conversations with them, you know, um, during the open transfer window or things of that sort. I can say, you know, I agree with you. I don't think this is a good fit either. Can I help you find your next school? You know, the open transfer window is coming up. Because I think it's very important that we don't shame people for leaving schools. We don't shame people for things not working. Hey, it's not a good fit. That doesn't mean you're not a good teacher. That just means this school isn't the fit for you, right? Those conversations also allow you to see, you know, who's experiencing strife so much so that as a school leader, you need to give them more attention and more support. And so again, without those conversations, without those stay conversations, you don't know. So I'm a firm believer of having those conversations a couple of weeks before the transfer window opens, a couple of weeks before we leave for winter break, a little bit before we leave for spring break. And then again at the end of the year. Because it, for me, it's very important to keep a pulse on my team so that I'm not scrambling in the 11th hour, trying to reach out to Ben and his department for talent.

Kyriako Anastasiadis: 30:28

Yeah. Little conversations, little conversation. And it almost feels like those conversations can also be used for teachers to kind of maybe express themselves that, you know, they kind of want to, but they don't have the opportunity. Maybe they're a little timid, you know, they maybe they've dropped hints about something that's frustrating them. So you kind of give them that, that platform to be like,"Hey, let's talk about staying." And, you know, they can kind of open up a little bit and maybe the principal opens up to during those conversations.

Jasmine Thurmond: 30:57

Definitely. You know, I am, I'm big on transparency. And so oftentimes, you know, I'll have teachers tell me about a challenge they're having and you know, I have no problems admitting to them,"You know what, you're right. This is a pain in my side as well." And while I haven't figured out all the answers I'm here and committed to helping you get through this challenge. So, you know, what are some things that you need or, you know, this is what I'm thinking, but again, I'm not the expert in this. What, you know, what, what can we do so that this isn't such a thorn for you?

Noelle Jones: 31:33

I actually have one last question for both Principal Thurmond and Mr. Felton. What's next for Opportunity Schools?

Ben Felton: 31:43

So, um, you know, having made significant progress and, and tackling one of, you know, public education's most persistent challenges, Chicago Public Schools is, is doubling down on our commitment to provide students and low-income communities with equitable access to high quality teaching. We certainly have a ways to go, but we are, you know, committed to continue to scale this program from the original 50 schools up to 100 by 2024. And we know the CEO Martinez is committed to continuing to prioritize this trend and, you know, this approach to educational equity and, and recruiting and retaining talented, diverse teachers for our students. We're pleased to share that we just published this case study with our partners at education first and the Joyce foundation and the case study describes Chicago's opportunity schools as really like a blueprint for urban school districts on how to address the challenges of recruiting, developing, and retaining educators in historically disinvested communities. You can find the case study at cps.edu/ opportunityschools.

Jasmine Thurmond: 32:48

So I think Opportunity Schools has, you know, really create so many opportunities for, uh, the school community at, at king academy until you know it's, it's limitless. Our potential is absolutely limitless. Um, I am incredibly excited to continue to be a part of, of the opportunity schools and to provide access to my team members as well as my, you know, potential candidates to just, just really learn as much as they can about what it means to teach in a school like King Academy. And, um, yeah, as I stated, I think the opportunities are limitless.

Kyriako Anastasiadis: 33:38

Thank you, Principal Thurmond—thank you, Ben for your time.

Melissa: 33:50

Hi there. My name is Melissa and I work in the CPS Talent Office. I'm here to share what getting a job in CPS looks like, but I'm not an advertiser. So I thought we'd do something else. Hey Fastima.

Fastima: 34:02

Hey Melissa.

Melissa: 34:11

I'm good! It's so good to see you been a while since we talked and you know, I know that we have been talking for the last several months and now you're here teaching at CPS and I am working with my colleagues and we want to make sure that other teachers know what it's like getting a job at Chicago Public Schools. And I know that you and I worked together—I think since April, I looked back on my calendar, and so now we're, you know, at the start of the school year and you have a job. So I was wondering since you're the expert on finding a job in CPS, if you could share a little bit about what that process was like for you?

Fastima: 34:48

Absolutely. So I actually graduated from National Louis University and on our announcements board, your name was there for anyone interested in CPS to reach out, if you're in special education. I reached out to you, Melissa and we kinda got things rolling there. And then eventually when we get to meet, you know, once we went through our interview, I felt very prepared. I felt comfortable by the time I got to the interview round with the schools that I interviewed with.

Melissa: 35:22

Oh, that's so awesome. I'm so glad to hear it. And so tell me what school are you at now?

Fastima: 35:28

So I am currently at South Shore Fine Arts Academy. Fun fact my dad actually went here and he has talking to nonstop about him reminiscing about his days here. So, that's fun(laughing).

Melissa: 35:46

It's a full circle moment for your family.

Fastima: 35:49

I know! I want to see if they have anything from like many years ago.

Melissa: 35:56

That's awesome. Thank you so much Fastima. It was good catching up.

Fastima: 36:00

Good to catch up with you.

Melissa: 36:03

Thanks for all you're doing and the impact you're making. I'm really proud of you and I'm really excited. Don't be a stranger, okay?

Fastima: 36:08

Absolutely.

: 36:13

Are you looking to teach in Chicago Public Schools? Real people like me are here to help visit, teach.cps.edu to learn more.

Kyriako Anastasiadis: 36:29

Season two of the CPS Teach Chicago Podcast is Noelle, Jennifer, Adam, Collin, Dave, James, and me, Kyriako. Special thanks to Ben Felton and Principal Thurmond for being our guests. This episode additional thanks to the students of Randolph Elementary and Hamilton elementary for a teacher appreciation ad. Our bell for this episode comes f rom Richards areer Academy—go Warriors. You can find more information about the Teach Chicago Podcast and links to resources discussed in this cps.edu/tcpod. Additionally, if you're a teacher interested in teaching in Chicago public schools, visit teach that cps.edu to learn more. Do you have questions or comments? Share them by emailing at teachchicagopod@cps. edu feedback, of course is always appreciated. Subscribe by hitting that small little subscribe button wherever you get your podcasts. You can also take five minutes and leave us a review, which helps the show tremendously. Copyright 2021 Chicago public schools. We'll see you next time for a conversation about what our classrooms are looking like so far this school year. Until then, teach Chicago.

Speaker 1: 37:53

Uh,