Does Your School Add to Teacher Stress by Wasting Instructional Time?

Teacher stress is increased by wasted time.

There is no doubt that many school principals have mastered the ability to establish priorities in schools. Some principals are victims of the various demands of the school. This may be especially true when a principal is new to a school that has established practices that waste time.

Other practices that waste time that are often simply accepted are:

• No policy on announcements which may interrupt a class at any time.
• Rewarding students for various achievements — like excelling in a fundraiser — with time out of class.
• Standardized testing and excessive preparation for the tests.
• Inefficient procedures for starting the school year.
• Inefficient procedures for ending the school year.
• Being involved in too many different well-intended programs.
• Early dismissals for sports and other activities.
• Overloading teachers with secretarial tasks.
• Too many emails that require immediate attention or personal emails among the faculty.
• Gearing down for holidays, especially Christmas.
• Excessive reliance on videos as teaching tools.
• Excessive reliance on homework, correcting it, and recording the grades.
• Grading too much student work of all kinds.
• Days of recognition for “special occasions or people” legislated by different states.
• Frequent problems with heating and/or cooling systems.
• Classes that are too large to allow individual attention.
• Teachers who are absent excessively.
• Useless appointments to serve on committees.
• Covering another teacher's class due to substitute shortage.