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Dive Brief:
- States and school districts can use Title II, Part A funds under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act to support creating strategic staffing models, according to a Feb. 9 Dear Colleague letter from the U.S. Department of Education. Title I dollars may also be used for schoolwide programs, the letter said.
- Strategic staffing is defined by the department as a team-based approach to instruction that replaces the traditional model of one teacher per classroom. Instead, the new model uses at least two educators to teach and share the same roster of students in one classroom at the same time.
- K-12 leaders could use Title II funds to differentiate pay for teachers, principals or other school leaders for taking on additional responsibilities or leading instructional teams, the guidance said. Title II funds could also help states create or improve their teacher residency programs, grow-your-own programs or registered apprenticeships for teachers, lead teachers, or principals.
Dive Insight:
The purpose of the Title II, Part A program is to provide grants to states and districts to improve student achievement and the number of effective teachers, principals and other school leaders.
The Education Department’s Dear Colleague letter, however, said that most of “Title II funding has gone to efforts that do not meaningfully improve teacher recruitment, training, placement, or compensation, and do not produce significant return on investment.” Shifting Title II funds toward innovative models like strategic staffing could “offer greater opportunity” to achieve the program’s goals, the department wrote.
Other uses for Title II funds encouraged by the Education Department included providing support for novice teachers through structured feedback, coaching and observation; job-embedded professional development and team-based collaboration; and preparation for school leaders to build and sustain instructional teams.
There is $2.2 billion allocated to Title II, Part A for fiscal year 2026, which is the same level of funding from the previous year.
The Education Department’s push for strategic staffing models, particularly team-based instruction, comes as these newer kinds of solutions to improve teacher recruitment and retention are gaining traction in districts nationwide.
For example, about 150 schools across 17 states implemented a teaching team-based strategy through the Next Education Workforce initiative at Arizona State University during the 2024-25 school year.
Another nonprofit, Public Impact, that has created a similar team-based staffing approach known as Opportunity Culture, saw over 1,000 schools implementing or planning to use its staffing designs in 2024-25. More than 90% of those schools are eligible for Title I funds.
Opportunity Culture also announced in February that 25 additional school systems will use its staffing model in 2026 through state funding in New Mexico and North Carolina as well as private funding in Oklahoma.
Research on the effectiveness of team-based teaching strategies is still fairly new but shows promising results. Last year, a study by Arizona State University and the University of Pennsylvania found that teachers who worked under Next Education Workforce’s team model were less likely to leave their jobs versus those teaching in traditional classrooms.
Opportunity Culture has cited 2024-25 data from the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction, which found that schools in the state that used the Opportunity Culture model were two to three times more likely “to exceed learning growth expectations schoolwide” compared to schools not using the same staffing designs.
