Why Teachers Feel Overwhelmed When School Reopens: The Unpaid Work No One Talks About
It’s 7:12 PM on the last night of winter break. I’m leaning against the dryer in my laundry room, folding holiday socks that half still don’t have a matching pair. My 8-year-old is sprawled on the living room couch, shoveling a leftover sugar cookie into his mouth while he re-runs the same Bluey episode for the third time. My phone buzzes once in my pocket, and when I pull it out, it’s a reminder text from the PTA: I’m supposed to bring paper goods for the back-to-school coffee tomorrow morning, and set up the supply drop-off table by 7:30 AM. That’s when it hits me. All the stuff I managed to forget over two weeks of sleeping in and not checking my work email once is back, and none of it is part of the job description I signed up for, or the paycheck I get every two weeks.
It’s not the lesson plans that are stressing me out. I wrapped those up last week, slotted in the new multiplication unit for my 4th graders, copied the first week’s handouts, even labeled the new reading bins. It’s everything else. Last semester, I spent three hours on a Sunday mediating a text chain between Mia’s mom and Lila’s mom after the girls had a falling out at recess. Neither wanted to talk directly to the other, so I was the go-between, passing messages back and forth and trying to smooth things over. That Sunday afternoon was supposed to be my son’s birthday party make-up after he got sick, and I missed half of it because I was stuck on my phone. I spent $118 out of my own pocket in December on glue sticks, notebook paper, and extra granola bars, because our school’s supply budget ran out after the first quarter. I stayed until 7 PM three nights in a row the week before break to redo our hallway bulletin board after admin said the original one, which my kids had filled with their hand-drawn holiday art, didn’t have enough “inclusive social-emotional messaging.” None of that overtime came with a stipend, or a comp day, or even a quick thank you from the front office.
Over break, all that faded into the background. It was easy to pretend my job is just teaching kids math and reading, which is what I love doing. Now that school’s reopening, it’s all hitting me at once: this constant stream of extra work that I’m expected to do for free, because “that’s just what teachers do.”
A couple of years ago, I got an email from a parent on the second night back from break, asking if I could meet her son for an hour before school on Friday to practice for the district spelling bee. She worked late every weeknight and couldn’t practice with him herself. When I replied that I couldn’t fit it in before school, since I’m already on duty supervising morning recess, she wrote back saying she was surprised I couldn’t make time for “extra support for my kid.” I didn’t have the heart to tell her I already had four hours of unpaid extra work that weekend: wrapping up the PTA fundraiser order forms, updating our class website with the new semester reading list, and driving a car full of extra art supplies to the school for the open house next week. Most parents don’t know, honestly. They see the job as what happens between 8 AM and 3 PM, and they don’t realize how much of the work spills out into nights and weekends, and none of it is paid. It’s not that they’re being rude on purpose. They just don’t know the unwritten stuff that comes with the job.
That’s why I started making small changes a couple of years ago, after I burned out and took two sick days in the first month of school just to catch up on sleep. The first thing I did was make a one-page list of small, specific tasks that parents can volunteer for, and I send it out in my first back-to-school email. It’s not big, demanding stuff, just things like coordinating the monthly birthday treat schedule, bringing a dozen extra granola bars a month for kids who forget lunch, helping me change out the bulletin board once a month after drop-off, and collecting turned-in permission slips for field trips. I use a free SignUpGenius link, and almost every time all the slots fill in 24 hours. That cuts almost two hours of unpaid work off my plate every month, which adds up to a full day of personal time a semester.
I also turned off push notifications for my school email on my phone, and added a line to my email signature that says I only check email between 8 AM and 4 PM on school days, so non-emergency messages will get a reply the next school day. At first I felt guilty, like I was being a bad teacher for setting that boundary. But no one has ever commented on it negatively, and it keeps me from scrolling through work messages while I’m eating dinner with my son, or on vacation. For parent conflicts, I started saying this one simple thing: “I’m happy to mediate a conversation between you two during school hours, but it works best if you can start by reaching out to each other directly first.” That cuts out so many middle-man text chains that eat up my weekend time.
For parents who want to help, even just one small thing makes a difference: if you’re grabbing groceries anyway, throw an extra pack of glue sticks or a box of granola bars in your cart to send in with your kid. If you get an email from the teacher asking for volunteers for a small task, sign up if you can. Don’t expect an immediate reply to a 9 PM email about a non-emergency question. Those small adjustments add up, and they take a lot of the uncompensated weight off teachers’ shoulders.
I still deal with more unpaid extra work than I should, honestly. Tomorrow I’ll show up 45 minutes early to set up that PTA table for no pay. I’ll probably buy another pack of glue sticks next week when we run out, because I don’t want my kids going without. The system is still broken, and this work shouldn’t fall to individual teachers or parent volunteers in the first place. But these small changes take the edge off, when you’re staring down a new semester and all the uncompensated work that comes with it.
Right now, my son just finished his cookie and is asking for one more. I’m going to say yes, and then we’re going to watch that Bluey episode again, and I’m not going to check my work email again tonight. Tomorrow I’ll handle what I can, and leave the rest for the next day. That’s all any of us can do right now.
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