Second grade teacher Becca Bradley offered to help out with an intervention time that divided the lesson in half, allowing Bradley’s second graders to participate in the lesson and benefit, as well.

“For 22 years, I’ve always felt like I’ve been stuck in this room, and it’s all on me,” Sinden said. “I mean, I can do a lot of things, but I can’t do it all well. So, I feel like teaming with second grade, it’s just opened up so many opportunities, and their ideas have been great.”

The small rural school district of 617 students in Jackson County is one of two schools in Michigan starting its second year of a “team teaching” pilot that moves away from a traditional “one teacher, one room” model and assigns a group of teachers, aides and other staff to an entire set of students, sometimes combining multiple grades.

While the team teaching model is intended to look different depending on the needs of the school, students typically learn from multiple teachers a day, sometimes with multiple teachers or educators in the room at the same time. 

At Concord, time is set aside for daily breakout math and reading group instruction in the lower grade levels. During these lessons, younger students are blended with different grades, while older students in grades 8 to 10 participate in cross-curricular learning units teaching teams have devised. For instance, eighth grade students combined their studies on science-based environmental policy with math to demonstrate the pros and cons of the policy.

About 100 miles to the east in downtown Detroit, team teaching has helped the staff of the Detroit Academy of Arts and Sciences focus on their strengths, assigning each of its teachers in kindergarten and second grade to a specific group of students for their phonics work.

Early returns on team teaching are positive at the K-8 charter school, with data showing improved scores in math for second graders who were a part of the pilot this past fall, Chief Academic Officer Monica McLeod said.

Like several of the schools nationwide that have adopted the team teaching model during its recent reemergence, McLeod cited two concurrent objectives: To attract and retain talented teachers and to make the profession more sustainable and connected by giving teachers more ownership over student learning.

“It pushed all of us to lean into our strengths and our trust and belief in each other,” McLeod said.

Created a shared responsibility

The team teaching model was introduced in Michigan last fall through the , a nonprofit that designs, funds and supports programs to recruit, develop and retain teachers. The initiative partnered with , which trains teachers on strategic staffing models and helps schools develop staffing models that work for their students.

With , MEWI CEO Jack Elsey said team teaching is one of several initiatives his organization has taken on in recent years in its comprehensive view of the educator pipeline. 

With three more Michigan school districts debuting the staffing models this fall and 12 schools implementing strategic staffing statewide, Elsey said there is cautious optimism that team teaching could present benefits for both teacher retention and student achievement.

“I think overall, teachers feel better supported by their colleagues because they’re in the same physical space with them,” he said. “They can talk about those kids among people who know those kids just as well as they do and they can say, ‘You know, I’m really struggling with delivering this math lesson, can you deliver this math lesson to my kids today?’ because I think you do it in a better way.”

For Concord, participating in the pilot made sense with more than half of the district’s teachers becoming eligible for retirement in the next few years, Superintendent Rebecca Hutchinson said.

Teachers have reported that the pilot has helped them get to know their students on a deeper level and dive deeper into the core curriculum, Hutchinson said. It’s also helped teachers lean into their strengths, while allowing them more planning time and collaboration with members of their teams, Hutchinson said.

“It creates this distributed expertise, but also this shared responsibility,” said Hutchinson, who is in her 18th year with the district, including the past six as superintendent. “It’s not just about who’s in front of me and what’s in front of me right now.”

Elevating the teaching profession

Foundationally, ASU has a “no one model” philosophy behind Next Education Workforce’s role in helping redesign teaching models, allowing for a distribution of expertise with the intention of deeper, personalized learning for students.

In Mesa Public Schools, the largest public district in Arizona, Next Education Workforce Executive Director Brent Maddin says there is evidence that teachers working in teams are than their colleagues in traditional classroom models. 

Mesa also has seen correlational data show teachers in team models are more effective than their colleagues in traditional classrooms and are happier and more engaged in their work, Maddin said.

“Our work, in particular, is largely focused on the educators and creating the conditions for them to thrive and to do their work differently,” Maddin said. “We’re not coming in with a particular ‘one size fits all’ approach. Instead, whatever the staffing model ultimately becomes is co-constructed by the educators in the communities in which the model is being implemented.”

Detroit Academy of Arts and Sciences decided to start slowly, with just kindergarten and second grade teachers agreeing to participate in its first year.

Teachers were instrumental in both designing and tweaking the model early in the year, switching morning small group meetings focused on social-emotional learning to daily themes like “Motivational Monday” and “Talk about it Tuesday.” While students saw each of the grade’s five teachers every day for different subjects, they were assigned to a home room teacher and a classroom that was designated with the name of a fruit.

Toward the end of the year, second grade teachers gave team teaching the ultimate endorsement in a Power Point presentation to administrators and third grade teachers explaining why the model should follow their students into the next grade. The school kicked off the academic year expanding the pilot to third and sixth grades this fall.

“It was amazing,” second grade teacher Lindsay Solomon said. “I could stand up there and teach, and my co-teacher could go around and support scholars. Even if there was a behavior issue, she could quietly put that fire out without me ever having to stop teaching.”

Second grade teacher Tayla Watson described the relationship she had with team co-teacher Broyles as complementary, with each other’s strengths helping in areas where the other might struggle. With five grade-level teachers sharing a roster of 115 students, it also allowed the teaching staff to more easily cover for each other when there were absences, Watson said, resulting in fewer interruptions to student learning.

“I think we have a lot more trust from our administrators and our leaders, because we are united and working together,” Watson said. “I think that that is something that could really elevate the teaching profession.”

No one model

At Concord, team teaching looks different in every grade. Children in second and third grades are combined and assigned a homeroom teacher who acts in a role similar to their classroom teacher. In fourth and fifth grades, students also are combined, but there are two teachers in the room at the same time. In higher grade levels, teachers come in for 30 minute subject “rotations” for each of the four core classes.

As an eighth grade teacher last year, Kayla Taylor could co-teach the humanities, with Taylor leading the way and another teacher providing additional oversight and support. 

A student teacher was added in the second semester, bringing a third educator to the mix that allowed for more small group learning. This year, Taylor will teach ninth and 10th grades, with different weekly planning days on the schedule for both grades. Despite more planning between teachers to make it happen, Taylor said the model was effective in making a better use of students’ time.

“Even though the schedule was more traditional, we were able to do more in terms of stations or kind of differentiating the instruction depending on individual student needs,” Taylor said. “That wasn’t necessarily just the students with IEPs or 504 (plans) but also the advanced students and the students in the center, to ensure that everyone was continuing to make progress.”

Hutchinson said there have been early signs of success, with both eighth and ninth grades reducing the number of students failing or needing to recover credits. 

With the district expanding team teaching to 10th grade this year, Hutchinson said each grade level continues to map out its own plan for its newest set of students, with shared goals around cross-curricular collaboration, “deeper” learning and building communication and reasoning.

“When you feel like you have a high sense of collective efficacy around the success of kids, it’s rewarding when you can sit down and make a plan and put that plan into action and that kid will succeed,” she said. “That’s the ultimate gift.”

The Michigan Educator Workforce Initiative and The 74 both receive funding from Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Philanthropies.

District leaders more openly acknowledge the importance of compensation, especially for teachers who must work a second job to make ends meet, and in regions that struggle to hire and retain educators.

But they can do more than just help their educators escape a two-job grind. In Texas, one district has made it possible for teachers to earn six-figure salaries without leaving the classroom — and without having to wait for decades.

Every state and district should make this their teachers’ reality.

How is it happening? Take a look at Midland Independent School District, in the Permian Basin. 

First, the district created teams headed by teacher-leaders, following the Opportunity Culture Multi-Classroom Leader model provided by my employer, Public Impact. Participating districts around the country offer educators with records of strong student learning growth and the ability to lead adults the chance to fill these roles, reaching more students as they continue to teach while guiding small groups of colleagues to attain similar results.

Each team typically has four or five classroom teachers and a specially trained paraprofessional who supports them, especially by focusing on small-group tutoring. The leaders have dedicated time each week for observing and coaching the team, co-teaching, modeling instruction, and leading planning and data analysis. They are accountable for the results of all students taught by members of the team. For all this, they receive a pay supplement that in 2023-24 averaged $13,500 nationally and reached as high as $25,000. The supplements are funded by reallocations of regular budgets, making them sustainable.

Team leaders repeatedly call this combination of teaching plus leadership the best of both worlds, seeing an immediate impact from providing targeted, on-the-job support and feedback to a manageable number of people.

In Midland, the district goes a step further by adding state incentive funding to the mix. Texas districts can receive annual state Teacher Incentive Allotments, based on how many of their educators the state designates as outstanding. Districts distribute those dollars, using locally designed criteria, to high-performing teachers — from $3,000 to $32,000 apiece.

With Midland educators a dozen or so years into their career already earning well above $60,000 a year, 37 team leaders reached the six-figure mark in 2024-25 after adding in stipends of $17,000 or more and state incentive allotments. And in February, the district received notification of 77 more teachers designated as outstanding, many of them already on multi-classroom teams.

The combination of a leadership role and higher pay can be disruptive — in a good way. Since the Opportunity Culture initiative began over a decade ago, principals have repeatedly told me that if the program had existed when they were teaching, they would never have left the classroom. One even confessed to planning to step back from the principalship and become a team leader, returning to direct work with students — the reason most educators choose their career in the first place.

In fact, Midland officials now have to consider how teacher-leader pay is affecting the ranks of assistant principals, as becoming an AP can mean a pay cut. But that is by design, and more of the district’s teachers are staying in the classroom rather than moving up the administrative ranks.

At the same time, the district is seeing improved recruitment and retention, because educators earning higher pay feel valued. The program could well create an opportunity to attract people to teaching who might not have otherwise thought about a career in education.

And unlike typical grant-funded supplements or bonuses, teachers can trust that this higher pay has been designed to last. 

In the end, the math adds up to a sweet sum: Great educators + higher pay = supported and satisfied teachers + strong learning results. It’s something all teachers and students deserve, and that all states and districts should provide.

If I told you there was one education reform that had the potential to address all these problems at once, you might think I was crazy. But shifting away from the one-classroom, one-teacher model in favor of a team-based approach, with different roles and responsibilities for various team members, has all these benefits and more. 

How can schools realize this potential? To find out, I spoke with leaders of three team-based teaching models — Kristan Van Hook from the (TAP), Bryan Hassel from and Brent Maddin from Arizona State University’s . Collectively, they have helped hundreds of schools transition away from one-classroom, one-teacher staffing plans.

Under the traditional approach, teachers are solely and fully responsible for what goes on in their classroom. As an example, if a school has 100 fifth graders, they are divided into four classes of 25 kids, each with its own teacher. But as Maddin points out, from a student’s perspective, this division inevitably creates something of a lottery. If one of those teachers is a beginner and one of them is a highly regarded veteran, well, take a number.  

This model can also be isolating from the teacher’s perspective. There’s no time to huddle with colleagues, and most schools have only instructional coaches for the entire staff. Districts do employ nearly a million paraprofessionals to assist teachers and smooth over the cracks somewhat, but the system still puts one teacher in charge of one class of kids, and the job doesn’t change much from year to year. Regardless of whether they’re a rookie or a veteran, the teacher will be in charge of the same number of kids. If they want to earn more money, they need to earn a master’s degree or step out of the classroom and into a leadership role. 

A team-based approach is different. Instead of each teacher being responsible for one class of kids for the full day, teams composed of teachers, paraprofessionals and instructional coaches share responsibilities for a larger group of students. 

Depending on the school, these groups are typically led by a master teacher who receives extra compensation for leading mini-teams of three to eight people. (In their original for Opportunity Culture, Emily Ayscue Hassel and Bryan Hassel called this “extending the reach” of the best teachers.) Hassel says the average teacher leader in Opportunity Culture schools receives an extra 20% in pay.

This approach has benefits for students and teachers. A student might spend some time receiving direct instruction from a master teacher, then work in small groups, or practice a skill by themselves. 

From a teacher’s perspective, the teams replace isolation with collaboration and make the job more sustainable. Team members work together to identify student needs and plan instruction. This approach helps beginners transition into the classroom and gives team members time to compare notes, which can also help if the district is pursuing some large initiative such as adopting . 

Most importantly, the team-based staffing models can boost student outcomes. External of the Opportunity Culture’s multi-classroom teacher roles found that it helped typical educators raise their performance from the 50^th to the 77^th percentile. A last year of the TAP system found that it boosted high school graduation rates by 3.8 percentage points. Those gains also reduced criminal activity and led to fewer individuals relying on welfare between the ages of 18 and 22.  

Teachers also seem to appreciate working in teams. One of TAP schools found a teacher retention rate of 94%, far surpassing national averages. In Opportunity Culture schools last year, 94% of teacher leaders a positive impact on staff collaboration, and 96% said the team approach helped improve learning.  And teachers working in schools felt more supported, had equal or lower turnover rates and were more likely to recommend teaching as a career compared with those other schools in their district. 

Team-based staffing could also help address other problems schools have been facing, such as high rates of at the same time have been hard to find. This is partly because the traditional approach has no built-in redundancy: If a teacher gets sick, there is no one on staff to cover the class. Even something as mundane as going to the bathroom can be a problem. In contrast, having teams creates built-in flexibilities enabling teachers to cover for each other on a daily and hour-by-hour basis. 

It also helps schools with the challenge of dealing with declining student enrollment. Maddin notes that schools that operate with fixed staffing ratios have a hard time navigating those declines — and the potential for staff layoffs — while in a team-based approach, staffing levels aren’t as strictly tied to student head counts. 

Transitioning to a team-based staffing system is not a simple affair. Potential obstacles include money, teacher buy-in and like licensure rules or evaluation policies. 

Van Hook says leadership stipends are typically the most expensive part of the switch, but most places already have similar people in place — they’re just not integrating them fully. Van Hook, Hassel and Maddin all say it’s possible to switch to a team-based staffing model without adding any ongoing costs. 

There are some transition costs, but accelerants like the federal and state-based policies like North Carolina’s program can help more schools make the switch. 

When asked about the biggest challenges and risks, all three leaders expressed concern about a “light touch” version of this work. Maddin says he can tell if a school’s culture hasn’t changed much if teachers don’t have sufficient planning time or feel responsible only for their same 25 kids, if student schedules look exactly the same every day or if a school needs to hire a substitute when a teacher has an early morning doctor’s appointment. 

In other words, shifting away from the one-classroom, one-teacher model requires fundamental changes. But a true team-based approach offers a wide variety of benefits for both educators and students.