Advanced Teaching Roles™
Advanced Teaching Roles (ATR)™ is the nation’s only school-level, state-supported strategic staffing initiative, empowering North Carolina schools to design and adopt new organizational structures that provide meaningful advancement opportunities and higher pay for highly effective educators, create systems of embedded professional support for developing teachers, distribute leadership across the schools building, and increase students’ access to effective educators and high quality instruction.
It's Time to Treat Teachers Like
The Professionals They Are.
Let’s be honest: North Carolina, like other states, is having a hard time recruiting and retaining great teachers. Is it pay? Is it workload? Is it lack of career opportunities and respect? Well, it turns out that each of these barriers is a piece of the puzzle. But when we consider the whole picture, we can see that the way the teaching profession is fundamentally structured hasn’t kept up with other highly skilled professions. Learn more about how Advanced Teaching Roles™ work and why they are needed now more than ever in this short video!
The biggest difference I see between schools that have Advanced Teaching Roles and those that do not is the level of buy-in from teachers; but also the ability for administrators to build relationships with staff…I can honestly say I could not imagine working in a different school that did not have Advanced Teaching Roles, nor in a district that wouldn’t support it.
Principal Philip Steffes
Former Principal at Palisades Park Elementary School
Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools
Advanced Teaching Roles™ in North Carolina:
Meaningful Career Pathways for Education Professionals (2022)
As business leaders, BEST NC members understand the importance of great talent in their own professional organizations, positioning BEST NC as a natural champion for elevating educators to increase student success.
BEST NC is pleased to present this policy brief on our state’s ATR™ initiative, which explains what it is, captures the history of the initiative, summarizes the research on its impact, shares best practices for school districts, and provides recommendations for scaling statewide.
In this brief, we examine the emerging opportunity to reimagine the experience of educators in North Carolina schools in order to address some of the root causes of our teacher pipeline challenges and to improve student achievement.
Why Are North Carolina Districts Adopting Advanced Teaching Roles™?
In the past, North Carolina school districts had very
rigid guidelines around school staffing structures, teacher position allotments, funding, and class size. In 2016, North Carolina launched the Advanced Teaching Roles™ initiative, which allowed approved districts to analyze, reorganize, and implement personalized staffing strategies that allow schools and districts to:
- Enable outstanding teachers across North Carolina to extend their reach to more students without having to leave the classroom, where they want to be;
- Recognize teacher leaders with meaningfully higher compensation;
Provide novice teachers with embedded, real-time, ongoing coaching and professional support; - Allow principals to distribute leadership more effectively across the entire school building; and, most importantly,
- Improve student outcomes.
How Do Advanced Teaching Roles™ Staffing Models Work?
Districts in North Carolina can apply for ATR status through the Department of Public Instruction. Once a district is selected, they are granted additional funding and the restrictions around classroom size and position allotments are eased. This allows schools to reorganize their staffing structures to better meet the needs of their students by distributing leadership throughout the school building, rewarding teachers who are taking on more responsibilities, and supporting the teachers who report they need assistance or guidance growing in their practice.
The ATR initiative has evolved with the continued support of the North Carolina General Assembly and other state education policymakers.
Since 2016, Advanced Teaching Roles has expanded into 500+ schools across 30+ districts. There is now $5.5 million in annual funding available for grants to districts to support the transition to ATR models, with districts allowed to apply for up to two 3-year grant terms.
Districts are able to design their own staffing structures or adopt models designed by other districts or third party organizations, like Public Impact’s Opportunity Culture model. North Carolina’s template for ATR models creates two new positions for teachers that create opportunities to advance their career in the classroom and come with meaningful compensation:
- Adult Leadership Teachers earn up to $10,000 more per year for leading and supporting teams of teachers, leading professional development, monitoring and assisting in the classroom, and helping novice teachers better understand their student data.
- Classroom Excellence Teachers are educators who have a proven record of taking on more students while maintaining achievement and growth levels, earning up to $3,000 more per year.
Case Study: Public Impact® and Opportunity Culture® in North Carolina
Many ATR districts in North Carolina have chosen t
o adopt a strategic staffing model developed by Public Impact® known as Opportunity Culture®. When ATR™ was first established in North Carolina, the pilot was built around the Opportunity Culture® model. This model also creates two new positions in schools that allow teachers to earn more and do more while staying in the classroom:
- Multi-Classroom Leader (MCL) is Opportunity Culture®’s Adult Leadership Teacher position.
- Expanded Impact Teacher (EIT) is Opportunity Culture®’s Classroom Excellence Teacher position.
ATR's™ Evidence of Success: A Culture of Collaboration and Continuous Improvement
for Educators and Students
While research on the impact of the ATR™ Initiative is ongoing, both leading and long-term indicators of ATR™ success are promising.
Improved Student Outcomes
- ATR™ had a statistically significant impact on school-wide academic growth in math.
- ATR™ schools are more likely to meet or exceed expected student growth than similar schools not implementing ATR™ (see chart to the left).
- 81% of teachers receiving support from an ATR™ educator reported improvement in academic achievement in their classes.
Reported Job Satisfaction
- 92% of teachers in advanced roles agree that Advanced Teaching Roles™ models allow them to be recognized for their expertise, and 85% agree that their role is valued by other educators.
- Educators working in schools with advanced teachers, but not serving in the roles themselves, also recognized the potential value of the initiative, with 76% or respondents reporting ATR would contribute to their professional growth, and 62% reporting it would contribute to their career satisfaction.
Recommended Best Practices for Advanced Teaching Roles™ in North Carolina
Since the inception of the ATR™ program in 2016, North Carolina has learned important lessons about building sustainable models that promote buy-in from districts, school leaders, teachers, and staff – with a persistent, positive impact on student learning. As district leaders contemplate, develop, expand, and sustain ATR™ in their schools, they should focus on building sustainable models that are continuously evaluated and adapted to leverage the skills of educators and to meet the needs of students. Here are a few best practices in districts that can help to drive continuous improvement:
- Implemented in districts that opt-in to the model;
- Explicitly designed to increase student achievement;
- Developed locally with significant educator and community input;
- Designed to empower principals to align teaching skills with student needs;
- Capable of recognizing that educators have varying professional aspirations at different phases in their careers (lattices, not ladders);
- Financially sustainable within current budgets and offer substantial salary increases to advanced roles teachers for leading instructional teams and/or extending their reach to more students.
For more recommended best practices see pages 18 and 19 of the Advanced Teaching Roles™ brief.
RESOURCE LIBRARY
Related Resources & Programs
Below is a curated selection of our catalogue of policy briefs, reports, videos, blogs, interactive data tools, and research around this initiative:
Data, Report
Teacher Pay in North Carolina: A Smart Investment in Student Achievement (2025 Edition)
Video
Advanced Teaching Roles™ Virtual RFP & Info-Sharing Sessions
Additional Resources
- The Friday Institute’s 2023 Evaluation Report: Advanced Teaching Roles
- The Friday Institute’s 2019-20 Final Report on Teacher Compensation and Advanced Teaching Roles Pilot Program (Year 3)
- The Friday Institute’s Deep Dive in to 3 Advanced Teaching Roles Models: Teaching for the Long Haul: Professionalizing Career Pathways for North Carolina Teachers
- New teaching model yields learning improvement for students in math – The Brookings Institution
- FutureEd Report – Teaching Innovation: New School Staffing Strategies Inspired by the Pandemic
- Coverage from EdNC and the News & Observer
- ‘Opportunity Culture schools outpace state results in NC’ – News Coverage by EdNC