Contracted Hours + Teacher Balance
If you’ve been in education long enough, you’ve probably experienced tensions around contract negotiations - maybe even a full-on strike. Heck, in 7th grade, I watched my teachers stand outside of our school as the morning buses pulled up, wearing red t-shirts and holding signs to demand a fair contract. Despite active teachers’ unions in many districts, it seems we are never actually granted a contract that serves us and our students.
With that said, I want to explore a topic that seems especially hot right now: working contracted hours. It is a good suggestion, and one that is a little more complex than it may seem at first. Since I have heard so much conversation around it recently, I’d like to also offer my candid experience.
For those readers who may not be familiar, “working contracted hours” for a teacher means doing all of the duties required of us within the hours that we are technically “on the clock.” Usually, that’s just minutes before the beginning of the students’ school day until maybe an 10-60 minutes after students leave. For me, that meant 7:30AM -3:00PM. Aside from the usual few kids who wandered in early or dawdled out late, that left me with 55 minutes of work time outside of the students’ school day. My students also had 40 minutes of lunch and recess daily, as well as a 45 minute special. So combined, I had about two hours of contracted time per day that was not in front of students.
It was my first year teaching. I had a great mentor teacher, a strong grade-level team, and a supportive administration. Of all of my wonderful kids, a handful came with truly tough behaviors or significant academic needs. But I was doing okay for a first year teacher. I stayed late almost every day- until 6:30, at least, sometimes, 7, 8, or even 9PM. (Yikes!!) I knew it wasn’t entirely healthy, but I felt I had an important job to do, and I wanted to do it well. I designed bulletin boards, laminated materials, and created almost every lesson and assignment from scratch. I called parents to give them positive praise and followed up on concerns, I scoured the school library in search of the perfect mentor text, or a set of just-right books for reading groups. But, no matter how late I stayed, I had a never ending to do list.
About 14 weeks in, I attended my first union meeting. I learned we were deep into contract negotiations and were struggling to come to an agreement with our school board. The union felt we needed to send a strong message. For a few weeks, we would document all of the work we did outside of our contracted hours on a log. Then, at the end of the month, we would all strike by working contracted hours only. Come in at 7:30, leave at 3:00. Take your 20 minute lunch every day (no meetings during that time) and get all of your prep work done in the time that remained. The importance of complete solidarity was stressed - otherwise individual teachers would face resentment for abiding by contracted hours, and it would take much longer to settle our contract negotiation.
I went home and cried. This was my first year. They had hired me - a 22 year old fresh out of undergrad - on an unspoken promise that I would not be a mistake. I had vowed to myself that would not let them down. And what about my students? And their parents who, at the very start of the year, had silently worried about my age and lack of experience, but had come to trust me as I proved my ability? I couldn’t imagine hearing their disappointment in how my performance as their child’s teacher declined. How could I possibly do it all during my contracted hours?!
All of the extra time I had been putting in was allowing me to survive my first year in a difficult job. I got joy from my teaching and my time with my students because I was confident they were learning and growing. I felt successful. All of my late nights and early mornings made it so that I was relaxed and prepared throughout the day, rather than frazzled. Yes, it was challenging, but I was on top of the world. I was managing the challenge and the stress. I was thriving.
I tried to picture working my contracted hours only. If I squeezed every minute out without so much as a bathroom break or chat with a passing colleague, that’d be 10 hours in total of prep time per week.
In that 10 hours I’d need to:
Plan daily lessons for science, social studies, reading and writing (including differentiation/accommodations for children on IEP/504s)
Meet with my grade-level team to plan larger units and special events
Write up my daily schedule, objectives, and morning message
Clean and organize my classroom space
Communicate with parents (daily phone calls, weekly newsletter)
Make copies of lesson materials and homework for 24 students
Read and respond to emails (parent, district, admin, and colleagues)
Review and give feedback on student work (including homework which we were expected to send home daily)
Create materials and classroom displays (ex: anchor charts) to support student learning
Meet with the building math specialist for curriculum review and lesson planning support (part of new teachers’ mentoring)
Review content to be taught including research when necessary (ex: wtf do I actually need to know about physics to teach third graders about forces?!)
Document student data for IEP/504s, behavior plans, school counselors, or other team members
Meet with IEP teams for special education consults for 7 children
Meet with students 1:1 or in small groups to handle conflicts, rewards, and extra help
Complete district-required data entry like progress reports and assessment results
It simply couldn’t be done.
Luckily, only a few days into our actual “contracted hours only strike,” our union was able to reach an agreement and our contract was signed. (An imperfect one...but at least some of our terms were met). I was completely relieved to be “free” from trying to do my job in a way that was totally unsustainable to me.
This experience taught me two things. First, it taught me that I should probably definitely create some healthier boundaries for myself. I could see that my current working hours would not be sustainable long-term. But it also taught me that at that time, my particular job could not physically be done within the hours designated in my contract. Full stop. And trying to do so was going to leave me so overwhelmed and underprepared that my work would suffer, my students’ learning would suffer, and my job satisfaction would suffer.
Boundaries between work and personal life are so important to long-term sustainability, and I hope that we get to a point where our contracts do match the scope of our actual work (and that we get paid accordingly!!) For those teachers who thrive from working contracted hours - it is so fantastic you’ve found a solution that is working for you! I’m confident you’ll reap amazing benefits from managing your time in this way.
And for those of you who may be more like me in my first year, intimidated by the idea of holding to your contracted hours, remember that this is not one-size-fits-all. Your contract may arbitrarily define what you’re able to do when. So design a schedule that works for you and your family. Create balance and remember to recharge. It’s not about making the latest statement, it’s about taking actions that will work for you over time.
