Teacher Team Structures

Overview

Liberty Public Schools, a school district located in suburban Missouri, realized that in order to move forward with its curriculum project, the district needed to reorganize its teacher leadership structure to develop OER curriculum across grade levels and subject areas.

After comparing district, school, and individual coach and teacher needs, the leadership staff designed a three-team structure:

1. The Elementary School Curriculum Team would consist of two lead teachers from each grade, two K-5 special education teachers, two electives representatives, and one library media specialist. These teachers would be selected by the elementary principals and would represent all 10 schools equitably with a focus to enlist only the most highly-qualified teachers to serve on this team.
2. The Middle School Curriculum Team would consist of one lead teacher from each of the content areas to include: math, science, English language arts, social studies, two elective representatives, one special education teacher, one library media specialist, and one instructional coach. These teachers would be selected by the middle school principals and would represent all four schools equitably with a focus to enlist only the most highly qualified teachers to serve on this team.
3. The High School Curriculum Team would consist of one lead teacher from each of the content areas to include: math, science, English language arts, social studies, FACS (Family and Consumer Sciences), IT, international languages, business, PE, and fine arts. Also included would be the director of library media services and at least one instructional coach from each building.

NOTE: In order to successfully roll out these teams, district administrators needed to align with school leaders around the specific needs and supports needed for each team to push their work forward.