Giving Compass' Take:

• Kara Arundel details the impact of remote learning on teacher staffing, focusing on potential solutions for long-lasting success.

• How might innovations in teacher staffing improve class sizes and benefit education budgets? What can you do to ensure such measures benefit teachers and students in marginalized communities?

• Read more about the importance of effective teacher staffing during remote schooling.

Predictions that the teaching shortage will worsen due to the COVID-19 outbreak should cause school leaders to rethink how they manage teacher staffing, recommends the American Institutes for Research in a new report .

Proponents say virtual learning and attention to personalized instruction for students create an ideal moment to change teaching structures so educators have opportunities to expand their professional skill sets.

Novel solutions include differentiating staffing, which includes building instructional teams based on each teacher’s strengths and desire to learn new skills.

Overnight, it seemed, some teachers’ roles changed from being leaders in their classrooms to including broader responsibilities as mentors and coaches to other teachers, curriculum designers, technology facilitators, data coaches and assessment designers. What if that were the norm, asks the AIR paper.

The differentiated school staffing approach is gaining attention as the pandemic continues to disrupt traditional education approaches and structures and as concerns about educator shortages intensify.

One approach suggested by AIR, and developed by consulting group Public Impact, is the Opportunity Culture initiative. In this structure, an experienced and effective teacher leads a small, collaborative team of teachers in the same grade or subject. The multi-classroom leaders use student data to help the team of teachers prepare for instruction, evaluate each student’s educational progress and make adjustments where needed.

Creating different teacher staffing structures would allow proven teachers to reach more students but the approaches could also help retain teachers who desire leadership roles without leaving the classroom, say advocates. An overhaul could also impact how teachers are trained and certified.

Read the full article about rethinking teacher staffing by Kara Arundel at Education Dive.