Unpaid extra work for teachers: what to know when school reopens (and how you can help)
I’m unlocking my 4th grade classroom door on the first Tuesday back from winter break, coffee sloshing over the edge of my chipped reusable tumbler when my phone buzzes. It’s a text from Mia’s grandma, sent 10 minutes earlier: Mia didn’t get new winter boots for Christmas, her old pair has a hole in the sole, can she skip recess today? Can you help? I stop, key still jammed in the lock, and that’s when it hits me. I just spent two weeks sleeping until 8, ignoring work emails, eating sugar cookies for breakfast, and I’d completely blocked it out: all the stuff I show up for that I never actually get paid to do.
Mia joined my class in November, after moving in with her grandma when her mom entered a rehab program. Grandma is on a fixed social security income, and new winter boots for a 9-year-old run $50 or more, more than she can swing this month. I keep a bin of extra outgrown clothes and shoes in the back of my classroom closet—stocked with donations from parents and my own money, since the school cut the part-time family support coordinator position back in 2021, and the spare clothes closet closed with it. I dig through the bin before the first bell, find a pair of black waterproof boots that fit just right, and send Mia out to recess with the rest of the kids. By the time I’m done, I’m 20 minutes behind my first lesson plan, and it’s not even 9 a.m.
Last year, I tracked my extra hours just out of curiosity, to see how much time I spent on work outside my contracted 7.5-hour day. Between September and December, I averaged 17 extra hours a month. That’s almost a full extra work week every month, none of it covered by overtime, none of it factored into my salary. It’s not just grading, either—we all know grading is part of the job now, baked into the expectation. This is the other stuff, the work that gets dumped on classroom teachers when districts cut support positions. It’s staying an hour after school to help a mom fill out the free and reduced lunch application online, because she can’t get an appointment with the district translator for two weeks. It’s coordinating with the local food bank to pack weekend food backpacks for three of my students who don’t have consistent meals at home. It’s driving a student home once a week because his mom can’t get off work early enough to catch the late bus, and the district cut late bus routes last year to save money. It’s responding to texts at 9 p.m. about a missing homework folder or a birthday party invite that got left out of backpacks.
Most parents don’t do this on purpose, of course. They don’t know that every non-emergency text they send after 7 p.m. is time I’m not spending helping my own 7-year-old with his bedtime reading. They don’t know that a 30-minute before-school meeting takes time I’d set aside to prep that day’s science experiment, so I end up prepping it after my own kid goes to bed. I used to feel guilty saying no to any of these requests, because if I don’t do it, who will? Most of the time, that’s just true. But over the past two years, I’ve realized there are small, concrete things parents can do to take this unplanned, unpaid work off my plate, that most people never think about.
For example, keep an extra set of clothes and a pair of weather-appropriate shoes in your kid’s backpack. It takes 30 seconds to pack, and it saves me 10 minutes of digging through my bin before class when something like a rain boot hole comes up. If you need translation help for a form or a meeting, ask me for the link to the district’s free translation hotline first— I can send it to you in one text, instead of spending an hour of my after-school time translating for you. If you want to help out at the start of the semester, ask the teacher what small, specific thing they need instead of bringing fancy coffee or generic teacher appreciation stickers. Last month, a parent dropped off a big bag of unopened granola bars after I mentioned a few kids don’t bring morning snacks, and that saved me $25 of my own money that I would have spent restocking my snack bin. If your PTA is voting on budget allocations this semester, push for funding to bring back part-time support positions, instead of funding another new playground set or a catered teacher appreciation week lunch. Those support positions exist specifically to handle all the family coordination and basic needs work that falls to teachers now.
Today, after school, I stayed 45 minutes late to help that mom fill out her free lunch application. I didn’t get overtime, I didn’t get anything more than a quick thank-you text, and I missed my own son’s soccer practice pickup, so my husband had to leave work early to cover it. I don’t share this to get pity. I share it because it’s the quiet reality of going back to school after every break: you forget how much of the job is the stuff that never makes it into the job description, the work you don’t get paid to do.
I’ve started setting a hard stop at 4:30 p.m. now, no work after that unless it’s an immediate safety issue for a kid. I used to feel terrible about turning off my work phone, but I realized if I don’t draw that line, I’ll burn out completely and won’t be able to help any kid. Some weeks I still end up working more, some weeks I stick to the line. It’s not fixed, it probably won’t be fixed until districts stop cutting support positions and start paying teachers for all the work we actually do. But those small changes parents make, the little adjustments that take work off my plate, add up more than anyone realizes.
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