Back to School: The Unpaid Extra Work Teachers Handle And How Parents Can Help
7:12 a.m. on the first day back from winter break, my reusable coffee cup is sweating through the sleeve onto my lesson plan book, and I’m taping up the polar bear bulletin board border I ordered with my own money when it hits me. I completely forgot this part of the job: the stuff that’s not in the contract, the stuff I don’t get paid extra to do. Over break, I’d spent my evenings scrolling for new math game ideas and restocking my personal supply of dry erase markers, and I’d blocked out all the chaos that doesn’t make it into back to school checklists. By 9 a.m. today, I’d almost certainly be dealing with something that has nothing to do with long vowel sounds or multiplication drills.
Ten minutes later, Mia, a quiet third grader who joined our class halfway through last semester, slipped through my classroom door before the first bell, hood pulled up over her pigtails and hands stuffed in her sweatshirt pockets. She asked if she could talk to me in the hallway, and right away I knew what was coming. Over break, her dad moved out, she told me. They got evicted from their apartment a week before Christmas, and now they’re sleeping three to a couch at her aunt’s house across town. She didn’t have the new notebook on the supply list I sent home before break, and the only pair of winter gloves they could find was too small, so she left them at home because she didn’t want anyone to laugh.
I dug out the extra backpack I’d picked up at a community drive back in August, pulled a pair of navy gloves that my own 8-year-old outgrew last spring from the closet in my desk, and walked her down to the cafeteria to grab an extra breakfast before the line closed. That took 22 minutes, by my count, which was the exact time I’d set aside to set up our morning meeting about new year’s goals. That’s how it goes, though. None of this is in my job description, and I don’t get overtime for any of it. Last semester before break, I spent three nights after school planning a small birthday party for a kid whose mom was working double shifts and couldn’t afford one. Two weeks before that, I spent a Saturday afternoon driving another kid to a dentist appointment because his mom couldn’t get off work and the school bus doesn’t route to the clinic. None of that gets added to my paycheck. It just gets added to my day.
This isn’t a rant about teacher pay, not really. It’s just the part no one talks about when you see all the cute back to school photos of decorated classrooms on Instagram. A lot of the work that keeps kids going through the school day isn’t actually part of the job, and it doesn’t get paid for. The good news is, there are small, concrete things both teachers and parents can do to take some of the weight off, and they don’t require big donations or extra hours of work.
For parents, the biggest help is to skip the vague “let me know if you need anything” message and bring something specific the first week of school. Last year, one parent dropped off 5 packs of kids’ socks and 10 granola bars on the first day, because she’d heard me mention a few kids who come to school without breakfast. That small box got me through three months of small emergencies, and I didn’t have to spend $30 out of my own pocket to stock up. If you’re dropping off your kid, ask the teacher if they keep a bin of extra supplies for kids who forget things, and offer to throw in one or two items next time you’re at the store. If you have an extra hour a month, offer to be the person on call to drive a kid to an appointment if the school needs it, instead of making the teacher do it on their own time. You don’t have to organize a big drive. Just one small thing takes a task off a teacher’s unpaid to-do list.
For teachers, I started doing two small things a couple years ago that have cut down on the extra stress a lot. First, I put together a “crisis bin” at the start of every school year, stocked with $20 worth of stuff from the dollar store: extra toothbrushes, deodorant, socks, gloves, single-serve snacks, and a couple of $5 fast food gift cards for kids who haven’t had a meal that day. I keep it by my desk, so I don’t have to dig through my own kid’s closet or run to the store after work when something comes up. Second, I started drawing a clear line: I handle the emergencies that affect a kid’s ability to be in class that day, but I say no to the extra unpaid work that doesn’t directly help a kid. Last year, when administration asked me to stay late three nights in a row to decorate the school hallway for homecoming, I said no. That’s not my job, and I don’t get paid to do it, so it’s okay to pass it off to someone who has the time.
By the end of first day back, Mia had shared her extra granola bar with another kid who stepped in a puddle and missed breakfast. I left an hour late, like I usually do on the first day, and I didn’t get paid for that extra hour. There’s no big fix for this problem, not when school funding is stretched thin and so many needs fall through the cracks. This year, I’m just keeping my crisis bin stocked, saying no to the stuff that doesn’t matter, and hoping more parents know that even the smallest, cheapest thing can take a little of the unpaid weight off my shoulders.
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