Each year, in elementary schools across the country, a ritual takes place: class rosters are finalized, and students are matched with a single teacher who will guide them through the year. For families, that assignment can feel like fate — one that shapes everything from academic confidence to classroom experience.
But behind the scenes, the process of assigning students to teachers is often driven by a mix of tradition, logistics and convenience. Sometimes it’s as simple as keeping two students with the same name apart (ever have two Alice Ms in one class? Not ideal!). But other times, external factors are at play. A recent New York Times column explored how affluent families sometimes use their influence to steer their children into perceived “better” classrooms, reinforcing opportunity gaps. In this context, who you get as a teacher can be shaped as much by social capital as by your learning needs.
What if it didn’t have to work this way? What if we stopped seeing the one-teacher, one-classroom model as inevitable and started viewing how we group students and educators as one of the most overlooked levers for improving teaching and learning?
Rethinking the static roster
In most elementary schools, student groupings begin and end with a static roster — a list of names, sorted by grade level or alphabet, generated with a few clicks in the student information system. Once set, these rosters often stay locked for the entire year.
They rarely reflect students’ learning needs, interests or strengths. They rarely take into account the expertise of the educators who serve them. Even when it would clearly benefit a student to learn math with one teacher and writing with another, the system isn’t built to allow it.
Some schools have tried to work around these constraints — introducing houses, advisory periods or project-based learning to offer students more variety in who they learn with and how. But most still operate within the same rigid structure: one room, one teacher, one schedule.
And that structure does more than limit instruction — it reinforces a system where access to strong teaching too often comes down to luck, logistics or who speaks loudest on a child’s behalf.
But what if we stopped organizing schools around static rosters and isolated roles? What if teachers didn’t have to be great at everything — but could lean into what they do best, as part of a team? What if we grouped and regrouped all the students in a grade level regularly based on real-time needs, strengths and interests?
These questions are at the heart of what we call dynamic student grouping — an approach made possible through team-based Next Education Workforce models.
Visualizing the shift: From one teacher, one classroom to dynamic student grouping
Dynamic student grouping can be hard to picture so we will use a series of images to compare the conventional one-teacher, one-classroom model with team-based, dynamic student grouping in action. While dynamic student grouping can also occur in secondary settings, the example that follows focuses on what it looks like in elementary school.
Most of us are familiar with the setup shown in Figure 1: one teacher, with approximately 25 students each, assigned to one room. In this model, students spend most of their day in the same classroom and may temporarily leave to attend classes like art, music or physical education. Teachers have “their students”, regrouping across classrooms is rare and the learning environment remains largely static.
Now, contrast that with opportunities that emerge in team-based models, such as the one shown in Figure 2. In this model, five educators share responsibility for a common roster of 100 students during a shared learning block. Rather than working in isolation, the educators collaborate to support all learners and group and regroup students based on their individual needs, strengths and interests.
Students might work in small groups, engage in project-based learning or receive targeted support, guided not by static classroom assignments but by educator expertise and real-time data. Viewed together, Figures 3 through 8 show how both students and educators move fluidly through shared learning spaces over the course of the day, creating a dynamic system that evolves to meet learners where they are.
A closer look at the school day
Figure 3 illustrates how the school day might begin in a team-based model. At first glance, it may resemble the conventional setup from Figure 1 but there are important differences. Each student starts in an advisory group. This small-group time helps build relationships, support social-emotional development and set a positive tone for the day before students transition into dynamically-grouped learning blocks. Critically, this arrangement is just the start of a school day. As the day unfolds, students are dynamically grouped and regrouped for core academic blocks based on instructional goals, student progress and educator expertise.
By Figure 4, students have been strategically regrouped for math based on learning goals, assessment data and input from the educator team. A paraeducator moves between learning spaces, providing targeted support where it’s most needed. The specific groupings — and which educators work with which students — are deliberate decisions made by the team. While groupings may shift as often as daily, they typically change every few weeks to reflect evolving student needs.
In Figure 5, while students attend specials (e.g., art, music, P.E.) with support from a paraeducator, the teaching team uses dedicated time to plan together. This block is intentionally built into the schedule and allows the educator team to review student progress, prepare lessons and coordinate dynamic student groupings. On early release days, the team uses the extra time to dive deeper into student work and align on next steps.
As students return from specials and transition into their reading block, they’re regrouped once again based on need (Figure 6). Notice that Teacher A (in maroon), the most experienced educator on the team, is now working with a smaller group — potentially those with the most acute learning needs or those in need of enrichment.
After the reading block, the full educator team and all students gather in a shared space for a quick team meeting (Figure 7) from 11 to 11:20 a.m. This time is helpful when there are topics that should have the attention of the entire learning community at once. For example, the team may use this time to introduce a new community educator who will be supporting an upcoming unit or reset expectations for behavior on the playground. Ultimately, this time serves as a daily touchpoint for the entire learning community and can serve as a moment for reflection, previewing future learning and building a stronger culture.
Finally, during the science block (Figure 8), part of the learning environment transforms into an open, flexible space. Retracting an accordion wall creates a shared instructional area, allowing students to move freely between zones without being confined to a single classroom. Educators are intentionally distributed throughout the space, and the lead teacher is now able to co-teach a larger group of students with the registered apprentice paraeducator and also an educator with a background in science.
A few notes
Obviously most school days extend beyond 1 p.m. After reading this, we hope that you have walked away with an understanding of the opportunities that come with dynamic student grouping (and not how a full-day schedule can be designed to support team-based staffing — that’s for a future blog!).
Physical space is often also a question. When retractable walls or other flexible options aren’t available, teams utilize larger shared spaces, such as gyms, cafeterias, libraries and even hallways to extend learning beyond the traditional classroom and create environments that match the academic tasks in which students are engaged.
Finally, some schools, especially smaller or rural ones, may have only one educator per grade level. In these contexts, transitioning to a team-based model often involves forming multi-age teams, where educators work across grade levels to share students, collaborate and design more flexible learning experiences.
Same educators + same students + same time = possibility
As this example illustrates, dynamic student grouping is far more than a scheduling tweak. It’s the structural foundation for a more responsive, student-centered approach to teaching and learning.
At its core, the team-based model challenges the quiet assumption behind those annual, ritual classroom assignments: that a single teacher, working largely in isolation, is the best we can offer. Instead, it’s built on a simple but powerful belief: all students deserve a team of educators who know them, plan together and adapt to their evolving needs. This model shifts us away from a system where access to strong teaching is shaped by luck, circumstance or influence and toward one where all students are supported by design.
It challenges the notion that meaningful learning happens by chance. Instead, it creates the conditions for every student to be seen, supported and known — by a team working in concert on their behalf.
When educators share responsibility for a group of learners during common blocks of time, they move beyond coverage to connection, and beyond sorting to strategic, student-centered support. And while some worry that team-based models might dilute relationships, the reality is just the opposite: Teachers in Next Education Workforce models report stronger, more frequent interactions with students than their counterparts in one-teacher, one-classroom settings. Relationships aren’t lost. They’re deepened and extended.
To see other examples and explore how these models come to life in real schools check out our resource collection on Dynamic Student Groupings or watch our Virtual Site Visits.
