Dear Colleague Letter Promotes Strategic Staffing

In a Monday Dear Colleague letter, Assistant Secretary Kirsten Baesler of the Office of Elementary and Secondary Education (OESE) provides guidance on the use of Title II funds for strategic staffing. The letter notes that strategic staffing is a team-based approach to organizing school personnel that moves beyond the traditional one-teacher, one-classroom model by assigning at least two professional educators to share responsibility for the same group of students during designated instructional periods. The model can be tailored to meet local needs and may be supported through Title II funds, which are distributed by formula to states and districts and provide flexibility to implement innovative workforce strategies. 

These strategies can include establishing differentiated educator roles and compensation structures that create leadership opportunities and provide incentives for additional responsibilities, such as mentoring or team leadership. Title II funds may also support structured induction and mentoring programs for novice teachers, development of educator pipelines through residencies and Grow Your Own initiatives, and job-embedded professional learning that promotes collaboration and data-driven instruction. Additionally, these resources can help prepare school leaders to develop and sustain instructional teams, and Title I funds may also support these activities in schools operating schoolwide programs.

Read the Dear Colleague letter here.