Rethink Education Program

Superintendents and Charter School Leaders,

We have great news! You may now designate ambassadors from your district and/or charter to participate in the Rethink Education Facilitator Badging cohort.

As a reminder, the Rethink Education program is a new statewide effort to strengthen remote and blended learning across North Carolina’s K-12 schools in response to COVID-19. Rethink Ed is specifically aligned to support K-8 learning and access to excellent instruction. The program will provide both professional development and high-quality online content for grades K-8 that will be available to all NC districts and charters.

The Rethink Education professional development is being developed through a partnership between NCDPI and NCCAT and is aligned to highly acclaimed research conducted by the Christensen Institute in partnership with Michael Horn and Heather Staker. The professional development is designed to prepare educators to become “Blended Learning Facilitators” in their district. They will receive training on the four blended instructional models and will receive a “Blended Learning Facilitator” badge upon completion of the professional development course.

Once badged as a "Blended Learning Facilitator," these facilitators will be equipped to lead professional development within your district/charter on blended learning models. In addition to earning a Facilitator Badge, they will receive a $500 stipend. The sessions they will lead within your district/charter will prepare other teachers to become badged as "Blended Learning Instructors." There is no cost to districts/charters for this training.

Rethink Education begins state-wide implementation in September 2021, with our first cohort of facilitators beginning on September 20th. Each district may submit the names of up to ten ambassadors to participate in this cohort. Each charter school may submit the names of two ambassadors to participate in this cohort. The visual included below outlines the Rethink Ed badging pathways.

We are currently collecting participation information from district and charter leaders. You may use the link below to submit your facilitator ambassadors for this cohort. Please submit these names no later than August 19, 2021.

Should you have questions about this, please reach out to Melissa Davis, Director of Rethink Education, or Rachel Wright Junio, Project Manager for Rethink Education.

Click here to submit ambassador names.