ATR Stakeholder Convening: Connecting Research and Practice Highlights and Key Takeaways

Introduction

On February 27 and February 28, 2025, the Friday Institute for Education, the NC State College of Education, and Basis Policy and Research hosted a 1.5 day Convening for North Carolina Advanced Teaching Roles (ATR) stakeholders. The Convening was an opportunity for North Carolina ATR stakeholders to:

Share emerging best practices related to the selection and evaluation of Adult Leadership teachers within their respective ATR programs.
Reflect on initial research findings from the study: The Selection and Evaluation of Advanced Teachers: A Mixed-Methods Measurement Study of North Carolina’s Advanced Teaching Roles Program (ATR Study).
Provide feedback on an early draft of an Adult Leadership evaluation instrument developed by the research team.

About Advanced Teaching Roles

North Carolina’s Advanced Teaching Roles (ATR) program empowers highly-effective classroom teachers to extend their reach beyond a single classroom, ensuring that more students have access to highly qualified teachers.

Convening attendees represented 19 ATR implementing North Carolina districts, including district-level leaders, educators serving in Advanced Teaching Roles and organizations that support their work. These districts reflected a range of implementation years, from early adopters to more recent participants.

Welcome remarks were given by NC State College of Education Dean Paola Sztajn, Friday Institute Executive Director Dr. Krista Glazewski and Dr. Maria Pitre-Martin, deputy superintendent of the NC Department of Public Instruction. Following, Dr. Tomberlin and Dr. Kellogg shared a presentation on impact and implementation findings from past external evaluations of North Carolina’s ATR program. The remainder of the Convening included district leader discussion panels, breakout sessions during which researchers shared findings, and time for PSU teams to confer and reflect.

The purpose of this report is to summarize key discussions from the Convening and identify program strengths and challenges generated during breakout and whole-group sessions. Promising practices were shared to frame potential strategies for participating districts. The contents of this report emerge from several Convening data sources, including mentimeters, surveys, panel recordings, and field notes.