Have you ever been interviewed or on a panel and after it was over you thought of a million things you could have said but didn’t? This was my experience today except for one small shift - I had a million things to say during the panel that didn’t come out of my mouth. (Insert side eye at myself in the mirror.)

I was invited to speak at “Partnering for Equity: A Convening on School Transformation” hosted by the Partnership for Los Angeles Schools and UCLA’s Center for the Transformation of Schools. The event was an opportunity for education practitioners and school system leaders to learn from one another and dive into the Partnership’s Playbook which outlines practices and lessons learned from more than a decade of working to transform schools. My panel was focused on key levers for school site transformation and it included me as a Literacy Coach, two principals, a district official and a nonprofit director. What folks shared was rich and insightful. We spoke of feedback and coaching for teachers, engaging families, the importance of data, culturally relevant pedagogy, master scheduling, restorative justice, you name it.

When asked to name a success of our work on the ground I shared the fact that because of roles like mine teachers are being supported to do incredibly complex work. Through coaching cycles, lesson studies, unit launches, data analysis and planning support, the teachers I work with feel more supported to meet their students’ needs. Being supported is crucial for any teacher but it’s especially important for teachers in high-need schools where there is a higher rate of teacher turnover and a larger number of novice educators.

And, after sharing that, I didn’t speak again.

So, what did I want to say?

When asked to name a key lever in for school site transformation I wanted to say this:

Systems leaders need to seriously rethink how teachers spend their time during the day. (Including teachers in this rethinking process would also be helpful.) We ask teachers to do an unrealistic amount of work in a very short amount of time. In a 6-period day, most teachers are with students for five of those periods and then have one conference period to do any and all of the following (and lots of things not listed here):

Plan for the next class or lesson - which is so much more than a bullet point!
Assess student work
Make copies and prepare materials
Collaborate with colleagues
Attend meetings
Reach out to and engage families
Use the bathroom
So many other things that teachers do on the daily

A 55-minute period is not nearly enough time to do these things successfully.

What it truly comes down to is that teachers need less time with students during the day so they can be prepared to meet students’ needs when they’re face to face. It’s incredibly irresponsible for our society and our school districts to expect an educator to do their best work without sufficient time to prepare for that work.

If we want to have schools where families and students are engaged, restorative practices are in place, students are known well, the arts are alive, joy fills the hallways and classroom and learning is truly happening, we have to blow up the existing structures that determine how teachers spend their time.

To truly transform a school and the students and teachers within, we must create systems that give teachers time to do this incredibly complex work, during the school day, away from students.