Podcast: Planning Period Literacy

Where do teachers learn to maximize the value of planning periods in their schedules? Teacher and productivity coach, Carla Erskin, reports that “Planning periods have long been treated as empty space on the master schedule, resulting in a missed opportunity to recognize the effective use of that time as professional practice and to help teachers develop the knowledge and skills it requires.” What are some first steps coaches and leaders might take?

Read Carla’s article, “Are Schools Squandering Teacher Planning Periods” here.

Visit Carla’s website, Sustainable Teaching Solutions here.

Subscribe to the Steve Barkley Ponders Out Loud podcast on iTunes or visit BarkleyPD.com to find new episodes!

Podcast Transcript:

[00:00:00.340] – Steve [Intro]
Welcome to the Steve Barkley Ponders Out Loud podcast. As instructional coaches and school leaders, you are tasked with guiding continuous teacher growth to create student success. This podcast looks to support you with strategies from experienced guests, as well as my own insights that I’ve gathered over the years. I’m thrilled to have you with us. Thanks for tuning in.

[00:00:29.850] – Steve
Planning period literacy. Today’s guest, Carla Erskin, an experienced middle school social studies teacher in Dallas, introduced me to the term, “planning period literacy.” It was in a blog that she wrote for Education Week where she asked the question, “are schools squandering teacher planning periods?” Carla entered education after studying for and working on a business career. In addition to her current teaching position, Carla is an author and productivity coach. Through her company, Sustainable Teaching Solutions, she develops practical productivity and burnout prevention systems that help educators reduce overwhelm, maximize planning time, and create more sustainable school day routines, all supporting teacher wellness and retention. Welcome, Carla.

[00:01:39.610] – Carla
Thank you so much. I love that introduction, Steve.

[00:01:43.210] – Steve
Okay. Well, I’m glad. I’m glad. I’m excited to have you on the podcast. I’m wondering, for starters, if you would Describe the role of a productivity coach.

[00:01:55.080] – Carla
Absolutely. So a productivity coach basically helps people take the time and energy they have and create systems that fit their lifestyle. So a lot of times when people think of productivity, they only think of the time management piece, but it also revolves around managing your energy and your attention as well.

[00:02:20.210] – Steve
So I’m taking it that that word systems is an important one. Would you describe that a little bit, what you mean by that?

[00:02:28.650] – Carla
Yeah, so I am a systems thinker. So anytime I have to do something more than once, I am trying to think of how can I systematize this project or this task so that I can have more time. And so when I say systems, I’m thinking about a stakced amount of habits or actions that create a system where you can leverage that repetition to get more out of your time.

[00:02:58.720] – Steve
As I’m listening to that, is there an automaticity to the systems piece?

[00:03:04.610] – Carla
Yes.

[00:03:05.720] – Steve
Does that then give me the opportunity to spend more of my thought energy?

[00:03:13.980] – Carla
Absolutely. So it’s kind of like the old assembly line, right? And the idea that if we string together repeatable actions, we can kind of maximize that time in those systems. So I become really, really good at doing these things in this certain order. And so that allows me to not have to switch my thinking as much, which then takes off that cognitive load and allows you to be more productive.

[00:03:45.080] – Steve
Cognitive load. That was the thought that was going around in my head. I didn’t have the word for it. So thanks for putting it in there. When you and I spoke earlier, you mentioned your work in supporting small business owners. And it strikes me that there’s a set of shared issues between a small business owner and a teacher running the classroom. Am I right in my connection?

[00:04:14.020] – Carla
Yeah, absolutely. And I really saw this when I started to think about the workload. As a small business owner, oftentimes I’ve worked with solopreneurs or people with small teams, and there’s a tremendous amount of workload when you think about a 1-person or 2 or 3-person team trying to run a whole business. And so often there’s a lot of burnout in the entrepreneurial space because it’s just really, really difficult to manage that workload. Teachers have the same issue a lot of times, especially as the demands have increased over the last 15, 20 years. So I noticed, like, in Texas, we have not updated our planning period standards since 1996, and we all know that the workload has increased tremendously since then. And so teachers often struggle with that same challenge of managing an increasing workload with a finite amount of time.

[00:05:14.120] – Steve
So when did you, in your – I guess it was when you got into your teaching career – when did you make the connection that planning periods for teachers weren’t providing the support that they could be providing?

[00:05:29.740] – Carla
Yeah, so I experienced my own burnout as a new educator, even though I was coming from the business side, the corporate side of things. Teaching is a very unique skill because it pulls on a lot of different areas. Not only is the workload, but the mental and the emotional, because you’re working with children. It’s a different kind of strain. And so after experiencing my own burnout season, I decided I was going to look for ways that I can leverage the time that I had in the school day to create systems so that I wasn’t taking work home or staying late, because I remember the early years being at work till 9 PM and then having to be right back the next day. And so I wanted to create a more sustainable workflow for myself. And then I kind of got into the – more into the productivity structures of what it would look like for a teacher. And once I developed those, I started to use them in my day and develop the idea that I don’t have to take work home or stay late. I can get it done in the amount of time if I plan accordingly.

[00:06:44.140] – Steve
So you mentioned in the article that teachers generally have not examined the role that a planning period could play in impacting their teaching effectiveness and their work-life balance. And I have to say, when I read that, I can’t ever think of it happening. [laughter] Not only wasn’t there any training or workshops in it, but I don’t even think it was ever even a discussion that I had with my colleagues as a teacher. So what is it that you build into the PD and the coaching that you offer teachers around the use of their planning time?

[00:07:29.850] – Carla
One of the words, Steve, that I use often when I’m talking to schools or clients is the word, “intentional.” As you mentioned, we are not taught this skill. And so when I started to look at the idea of leveraging planning periods, I realized that there’s this assumption that teachers come into the field knowing how to do these things. And then I started to realize that a lot of teachers treat their planning period as a break and that they’re not really sure of how to use the time. They spend it maybe socializing, or if they have PLTs, of course they do that, but when it’s their own personal time to use, they really don’t always know how to leverage that time. So occasionally teachers pick up these skills as they learn to teach, but often I’ve talked to veteran teachers that are still not really aware of how to best use this time. And so one of the things we talk about, as I mentioned before, is routines. Stacking routines during the planning time and during your day so that you can reduce the decision-making that comes with, okay, now I have this block of time, what should I do with it?

[00:08:48.380] – Carla
That could take up to 15, 20 minutes just trying to orientate yourself with what you need to do. And so these routines help you take some of that pressure off and pre-plan what you’re going to do during your planning time.

[00:09:02.740] – Steve
You’ve been studying planning time across districts and states. What are some of the differences or the surprises that you’ve discovered?

[00:09:14.650] – Carla
Surprisingly, there’s 2 ways a teacher comes about getting planning time. It’s either mandated through states or it’s negotiated through collective bargaining. And really depending on how your state sees planning time and sees teacher value is going to determine that time. Some states who have collective bargaining may get more time than the states who mandate it, and then sometimes not. I’ve noticed also that a lot of private schools don’t give as much planning time as public schools. That’s one of the trends that I noticed. States in the South are more likely to have state-mandated time because they don’t allow collective bargaining in unions as much as the states in the Northeast. And so it really just depends on how strong your union support is or how much your state values teachers and teacher workload.

[00:10:19.210] – Steve
Do you have a couple of specific strategies that you could kind of label us for folks to be thinking about?

[00:10:30.060] – Carla
Absolutely. So one of the things, if you don’t have a complete system that you use, just jotting down before your day starts 3 or 4 things you may want to get accomplished during your planning time based on how much time you have. Some people who are on block may have more time than others, but if you can just prioritize 2 or 3 things that you want to accomplish, at the beginning of your day, that way, when your planning period comes, you already have that task ready to go. And so you’re not spending time trying to decide, okay, what’s important for me to do today? What should I do today? That’s just one thing that will really change how you view and how you plan your time.

[00:11:17.720] – Steve
I’m wondering if there’s a conversation that needs to go on between colleagues – the word respect is coming to my mind, but respecting each other’s planning time.

[00:11:32.570] – Carla
Absolutely. So that’s another part of the conversation. I teach this method in 2 sides: intentional boundaries and intentional structure. So the intentional boundaries piece is ensuring that your colleagues understand that this time is valuable to you. And then learning how to redirect those interruptions, how to plan for the interruptions, how to redirect the interruptions. One of the things I suggest clients do is make a little sign that you maybe put on your door that says, “I’m in planning session right now.” Something of that nature. Or if someone comes, say, “Hey, I’m in the middle of planning, but if I have a little time later, I’ll come by and see you.” So they understand that you are valuing that time. And once you do that a few times, people will start to understand and respect it. So you can pre-plan for it with your little signs and then be prepared for interruptions with a – I call it a pocket statement or pocket boundary.

[00:12:39.150] – Steve
What’s coming to my mind is that I’ve historically heard that described as a teacher’s free period, and that’s probably not a good word for us to have ever brought into that conversation.

[00:12:55.390] – Carla
Exactly. I’ve heard people say, “Oh, that’s my second lunch,” or, you know, they use it to run errands, you know, all kinds of things. And then they wonder why they’re feeling pressure when it’s time to submit lesson plans or paperwork. It’s because you’ve been having 2 lunches.

[00:13:16.390] – Steve
[laughter] So I had the opportunity to record a podcast with Brad Gaynor, and he’s written about the term of dignity for teachers and the connection to professional dignity. How do the conditions that we create for teachers communicate whether we really value them as professionals? And I’m sensing that a protecting and supporting teachers planning time is an issue that connects to professional dignity as well as to the concept of productivity.

[00:13:58.560] – Carla
Absolutely. One of the things that we have to talk about is exactly that. How are teachers being treated by the administration staff? Often, teachers are given very little regard about covering, you know, sub positions when teachers are out. And I found in my research that depending on the state bylaws, this could be an illegal practice. Teachers are supposed to have the option to cover classes if they are able to be asked at all for those kind of things. And a lot of times teachers feel the pressure because these are the same people who are responsible for your reviews and for your career. And so to put teachers in a position where they are having to decide between their personal well-being and their career is, I think, disingenuous to the values of the position.

[00:15:03.010] – Steve
So many of the listeners to this podcast are school administrators and a lot of instructional coaches as well as teacher leaders that might be in department chairs or grade levels. And I’m wondering what recommendations you might share with them as the best way that they could be supporting teachers with this effective use of planning time.

[00:15:31.360] – Carla
Absolutely. So, I think we definitely have to build in the instruction and the knowledge and skills of planning period use, what I call planning period literacy. This can be done through professional developments at the beginning of the school year or through new teacher onboarding so that teachers understand that this is not a free period. This is an intentional time to use to aid their teaching and to also help with teacher retention because a lot of times teachers, when I’ve surveyed teachers, they are considering leaving because of burnout. And so we can start leveraging that time as more than a time to socialize or even just a time where a lot of teachers just spend the time doing low-level tasks like making copies. So if we can teach teachers how to leverage that time for their highest and best use, then I think that’s important. But also on the other side of that is the protection we just talked about, creating a culture where teachers feel like it is their time to leverage for what they need to do, their workload, and not a time where they feel like they’re forced to cover other classes or respond to interruptions.

[00:16:51.910] – Carla
I’ve seen where teachers are called in for things that could be done via email. And so just creating a culture where teachers feel like they have the autonomy to use that time for their best interests.

[00:17:08.060] – Steve
You know, I mentioned earlier that I have like no experience of this topic coming up as PD or even conversations. And it’s striking me that a simple starting spot could be a PD session or even part of a faculty meeting where you had teachers just sit and, I don’t know, maybe one of your articles to get the topic up and then some questions for the teachers to explore, you know, who’s doing what. I mean, it seems like something we just aren’t thinking about and a starting point of an awareness would be powerful.

[00:17:58.740] – Carla
Yes, Steve. See, I think my business background made me the perfect candidate for this topic because other industries, this is part of their culture – time management and productivity. And I think in the education field, I don’t know how we missed that memo, but I think that definitely talking to teachers about the best use of their time and how to prioritize and from a campus perspective, what is the campus priorities when it comes to how teachers are using that time? Are we using this time for a book study? Are we using this time for planning, for collaborative planning? What is the campus focus on and how does that align with how I use this time? I think those are conversations we can have as well.

[00:18:53.070] – Steve
I’ll put the link to your article in the podcast lead-in, make it easy for folks to find. But what’s the best way that people can follow up with you, kind of connect with you, follow the work and and the writing that you’re doing?

[00:19:06.500] – Carla
Absolutely. So I’m on LinkedIn as Carla Erskin, but I also have a contact form if schools or leaders want to reach out and find out more about planning period literacy. And that’s on my website, sustainableteachingsolutions.com, and they can reach out to me there as well. I am really excited about getting this knowledge and skills into the hands of more teachers so that we can stop the hemorrhaging of good teachers from our industry.

[00:19:36.640] – Steve
Well, thanks so much, Carla. I’ll put the link to your website in the podcast lead-in as well and make, make it easy for folks. Thanks so much for taking your time to help us with our productivity. Much appreciated.

[00:19:52.410] – Carla
Thank you, Steve.

[00:19:55.210] – Steve [Outro]
Thanks for listening, folks. I’d love to hear what you’re pondering. You can find me on Twitter or LinkedIn @SteveBarkley. Or send me your questions and find my videos and blogs at barkleypd.com.