The Southeastern Center for Teaching Quality has devised a “tool kit” with resources, examples, and suggestions for addressing teachers’ working conditions. Among the strategies:
Time:
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• Schools should involve community volunteers in field trips or extracurricular activities to free up teachers’ time.
• To set aside more time for professional development, principals can bank teachers’ existing early-release days for longer spans of training.
Empowerment:
• Teachers can volunteer to serve on schoolwide committees.
• Principals should seek out teachers who don’t normally take leadership roles to be involved in decisionmaking.
Leadership:
The Teachers Working Conditions tool kit is now available.
• The community can advocate for principal professional-development programs.
• Teachers should involve principals in “action research” projects and inform them of the results.
• Principals should encourage teachers to take leadership roles at the school.
Professional Development:
• Museums, businesses, and universities should establish “teacher in residence” and “teacher on loan” programs to immerse teachers in current professional content knowledge and scholarship.
• Teachers should each craft a personal-improvement plan.
• Districts should require schools to complete assessments of their professional-development.
Facilities and Resources:
• Policymakers should review school funding models to ensure that enough continuing resources are available for clean, safe, and well-maintained school buildings.
• Principals should recognize teachers as professionals and provide private or semi-private office space for storing belongings or accessing a phone or computer.
