Helpful Tips to Get Your Teacher Work Done In Your Contract Hours

If you’re a special educator and you haven’t been following Heather from Full Sped Ahead, here’s your sign. She has some tips for us for getting teacher work done during contract hours. There’s been so much buzz this year over the concept of “quiet quitting”, which seems comical to many of us. It feels like we’re always writing IEPs from our couch and laminating activities while catching up on Love is Blind on Saturday mornings. Ya feel me?! Heather’s tips can help orient us to the pockets of time we CAN control and offer new ways of thinking about getting all our teacher work done.

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We are busy teachers. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again- we are one of the only teachers that have to teach all subject areas. So, seriously, how do I get it all my teacher work done during contract hours? I promise I have no magic wand. No fairy godmother. While of course we can do some audits on our time management, there’s a lot of situations that no amount of management or schedule swapping that can solve the bigger issues.

Planning periods

I can not stress this enough, if you have planning periods make sure you are taking the time to use them. I understand that this may not happen every day, but you need to let other staff take over and give them responsibility when you have your planning period.

Whether your students are at lunch or at specials, you should plan to take this time to get your own paperwork and planning done. Realistically, I know things will come up and you may need to support your students occasionally, but ask an assistant or other staff member to respect your plan time. You need breaks too.

If you are not getting your planning times, make sure you talk to your principal, director or union to solve how you can have prep time. Teachers need to be able to get their teacher work done during your contract hours!

Disclaimer: Planning periods are perfectly okay for you to sit in your room in the quiet and not get work done. 

Related service time

Take a look at your schedule and see if there is a time during the week that related service staff are working with the majority of your students. Maybe they are running a group with your students? Supporting center rotations?

If the majority of your students have a group or related service coming around the same time, assign your assistants to work with the students that aren’t being serviced. This could be a time to revisit old skills, or a leisure time to play a game.

Once a week, my social worker and speech and language pathologist run a social group for 30 minutes. I let my assistants help the group, and I take that time to work quietly in a corner on my computer or make copies. That 30 minutes helps give me some extra teacher work time.

Independent working time

Schedule a time in the day where students are expected to work alone. Teach your students 15-30 minute tasks that they can do alone or with very little teacher supervision.

This may take some time to teach and practice, but your students can do it. You can work on your computer while students are working independently. You can take data on them while working or watch from a distance.

Before or after school

Check your actual working contract hours. Teachers are expected to be at work before students arrive and stay slightly beyond when the students leave.

For example, my school day is 8-3. Teachers are expected to be at work by 7:45 and can leave by 3:15. That is an extra 30 minutes of time that you can work each day.

I don’t suggest doing it often, but figure out if you are a morning worker or after school worker. For me, I am much more motivated in the morning, so I typically come to work between 7:00-7:30. This allows me some extra work time during those busy IEP seasons.

Again, I don’t do it all the time. I do it enough where I feel productive but not burnt out.

Delegate tasks for students or staff

Students love to help you. Let’s face it, your staff is there to help you as well! If you’re like me, you hate asking for help or giving someone else the responsibility to get it done correctly for it.

I’m the type of person that thinks “If I want something done right, I’ll do it myself”. This isn’t always the case.

If I have something to print, deliver to another teacher or cut, I may ask a trustworthy student to do that for me. Previously, I’ve had students laminate materials with a laminator for me. It was an in class job. My students loved having that responsibility and then seeing us use it in the classroom, it gave them so much pride.

If you have to set up for the next activity, or reset any tasks, delegate that to your staff. Assistants can set up or take down activities, and they’ll gain a sense of ownership and sense of belonging in the classroom. They are there to help you, so don’t be afraid to put them to work too.

You’ll have pockets of time to work in, just give it a try. Sometimes 30 minutes each week more than what you’ve had. It is very helpful to get your teacher work done during your school contract hours!