Summer Break Experiment

My day job is titled “instructional coach”. I teach teachers mostly in the confines of my job but am still on a teacher contract. In my district, we are now out for summer break. Throughout my career, this break has meant a lot of different things. Other times I have been a coach, I had an extended contract which means I would still be working. NOT THIS YEAR!

I know the old adage is teachers have 3 months off. During the school year most teachers work way beyond their contracted hours and also think about their students and classwork constantly.

Teachers are hourly in the morning and salary in the afternoon.

Teachers cannot be late. We do not determine our own schedules in the morning. There are rooms full of students waiting for you to show up. Teachers can stay as long as they like in the afternoon and into the evening. Staying til 6 or 7 pm is a normal occurrence for many teachers.

Summer break allows me to experiment. This year it is with my schedule. There have been summers I have kept just the same schedule. I went into school almost every day to work on one project or another. Organization systems for books have been created in the summer. There are also trainings to contend with. Some years I went far away on planes for training and other times Amazon’s Prime delivery brought the professional resources to my door.