Educators from four schools shared how teaming shapes their day-to-day work in a session entitled “A Conversation With Educators Working in Next Education Workforce Models” during the 2026 Strategic School Staffing Summit, hosted by Arizona State University’s Next Education Workforce™ initiative.
In addition to flexibly grouping students based on their needs and designing interdisciplinary projects, Megan Rios, a 6th-grade ELA and Lead Teacher, shared how teaching in a team-based staffing model has improved both the experiences of educators and the experiences of students at Desert Wind Middle School in Maricopa, Ariz.
“My favorite thing is that we’ve been able to leverage each other’s strengths. We all have our own superpower in the classroom, and being on a team helps us leverage that and use each other to provide consistent support across all classrooms, so that everyone comes to work loving their job, feeling successful,” Rios said. “It’s a night-and-day difference. The collective approach really gives us the ability to see students more equitably and to approach education in an intentional way.”
The educators also reflected on how teams support cross-coordinated instruction and dynamic student groups to meet shared goals.
While this is the first year on a team for Lindsey Holmes, a 3rd-grade educator and Lead Teacher at the Detroit Academy of Arts and Sciences, she shared how teaming has already led to growth in student achievement.
“When you are teaming, you have an opportunity to work with like-minded professionals who are driving toward the same goal, so everyone on our team is deeply invested in student achievement, data and outcomes,” Holmes shared. “Throughout the school year, really sitting down having those data conversations, thinking about ways that we can reshape, reform and become more flexible to meet student needs has been something that’s super exciting for our team and to see our students grow as much as they have in ELA [and] math, in particular.”
Hear more about their experiences, along with those of Kelly L. Owen, a 9th-grade special education teacher at Westwood High School in Mesa, Ariz., and Haley Hurst, a 5th- and 6th-grade Lead Teacher at the Academy for Integrated Arts in Kansas City, Missouri.
