What Is The Biggest Cause Of Teacher Burnout? A Former 4th Grade Teacher Explains
The kettle whistle went off three times before I heard it at 9:17 PM on a Tuesday in October, 2022. My 4th grade class’s shared Google Drive was open on my beat-up laptop, which I’d dragged to the kitchen table while I folded my own two kids’ soccer uniforms. I was re-writing a week of reading lesson plans for the third time that month because our new district curriculum didn’t align with the updated state test guidelines I’d gotten via email that afternoon. A Slack ping popped up: the PTA needed me to finalize the snack list for our field trip next Friday, and one of the chaperones had dropped out. Thirty seconds later, another email landed from a parent asking if I could cut their kid’s homework in half that week because of a regional gymnastics meet. I stared at the screen, reached for my peppermint tea, and knocked the whole 12-ounce mug into my lap. I drafted my resignation email that night, and sent it first thing the next morning.
When people ask what led to my burnout, they almost always guess wrong. They name difficult kids, unruly parent interactions, low pay, crowded classrooms. All of those are real stressors, don’t get me wrong. But the thing that pushed me over the edge wasn’t any single big event. It was the endless, uncompensated after-hours work that leaked into every corner of my personal life, with no clear end in sight.
I started teaching 7 years before I quit, and I genuinely loved most of it. I loved watching a kid figure out how to multiply fractions for the first time, I loved the silly jokes we shared during morning meeting, I even loved decorating the classroom bulletin boards at the start of the year. When I signed my first contract, I knew the job would bleed past the 8 AM to 4 PM bell schedule a little. But what no one told me was that it would never stop.
On a typical week, I’d leave the school building between 5:30 and 6 PM, after grading papers and prepping for the next day. Then I’d spend 2 to 3 more hours on weeknights answering emails, updating IEP documentation, adjusting lesson plans, and coordinating volunteer schedules for class events. On weekends, I’d spend another 4 to 6 hours grading, working on district required professional development modules, and prepping for the coming week. That added up to 12 to 18 extra hours of unpaid work a week – the equivalent of a part-time job on top of my full-time teaching position. I missed half of my older kid’s soccer games because I was grading papers on Saturday mornings. I put off a root canal for 3 months because I couldn’t fit a dentist appointment into a school day, and I couldn’t take time off because that would mean writing sub plans for a day I wasn’t there, which was another 4 hours of extra work.
When I brought this up to my principal, she sighed and said that’s just what good teachers do. That if I cared about my kids, I’d make the time. That narrative that “good teachers work all the time” is what makes it so hard to draw lines. I felt guilty for even saying I was overwhelmed, like that meant I wasn’t cut out for the job.
Now that I’m out of the classroom full-time and just a parent of a kid in elementary school, I get why most people don’t see this. Parents are busy too. You think of a question about your kid’s homework at 9 PM while you’re cleaning up the kitchen, so you send an email right then so you don’t forget. You don’t stop to think that email is going to ping a teacher’s phone, and if they don’t reply right away, they worry you’ll think they don’t care. Most of this isn’t anyone being rude or demanding on purpose. It’s just people not knowing how all the small requests add up.
That’s where the small, concrete changes can make a huge difference, for both parents and teachers. For parents, there are three tiny things you can start doing tomorrow that take the pressure off: First, if your email isn’t an emergency (think: your kid got hurt, or forgot their inhaler at school), don’t send it after 4 PM or on weekends if you can help it. If you think of it outside work hours, save it as a draft and send it the next school day. Second, add “no rush reply needed” to the subject line of any email that isn’t urgent. That one line tells a teacher they don’t have to stop what they’re doing with their own family to get back to you. Third, send non-classroom requests (like changing your kid’s pickup routine, or reporting an absence) to the front office first, not your teacher. The office is staffed to handle that admin work, and it keeps your teacher from having to track 10 different schedule changes a day on top of teaching.
For teachers, the biggest concrete step I wish I’d taken earlier is setting an auto-reply that says you only respond to emails during school hours, 8 AM to 4 PM. You don’t have to apologize for it, you don’t have to explain it. It just sets a clear expectation that people don’t need to wait for a reply at night. Block at least one full weeknight where you don’t open your work laptop at all. I used to think that would mean I got too far behind, but it actually gave me enough energy to get my work done faster the next day.
Systemic change is still needed, of course. Schools need more staff, more funding for admin support, higher pay to make up for all the extra hours. But until that happens, these small shifts take a little bit of the weight off. I still substitute teach once a month, and I see the same burnout creeping in for so many of my former colleagues. Most of them have never even thought about setting that auto-reply, because they’ve been told their whole career that they have to be available 24/7 to be a good teacher. It’s not a fix for everything, but it’s a start. And right now, that’s enough to keep a lot of good teachers in the classroom a little longer.
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