We recognize this is a difficult time for everyone. Teachers in Austin ISD remain strongly committed to our students. We want our students to have the best environment to learn, grow, and thrive. We also want them to remain healthy while doing this. However, there are structural impediments making things more difficult for everyone. We are writing this letter to shine a light on some of these structural impediments in order to improve the learning environment for all students and the working environment for all staff.

Teachers are spending too much time in meetings. Meetings don't make us better teachers. They just take time away from adequately preparing for our students. Some schools are having at least three meetings each week during planning periods. Some schools are having two or three meetings each week after school. We need more time to prepare for our students and less time in meetings. In addition to the numerous meetings, the duty day is longer than in the past and many teachers have additional assignments outside the official duty day and during lunch. Staff and PLC meetings could be held once or twice a month rather than each week. When information can be sent via email, it should be. This will not only be more efficient for everyone, but it will also ensure the information is communicated in a clear, consistent manner, and in a way that can be used by everyone as a resource.

We understand a need for consistency, particularly this year with the potential for quarantines. However, the way this is being done has taken the satisfaction out of teaching and learning. Some teachers have been told the lessons will be provided and it is not our job to prepare lesson plans. Others are told they must prepare complicated lesson plans using centralized materials. This may have been intended to create uniformity or even to make our lives easier. However, it has only caused more stress. Teachers have been required to copy and paste material in multiple locations for no apparent reason. Resources are not always available when the teacher needs them. Changes are made with little notice. Most of the resources are only in English, even for the subjects required to be taught in Spanish for dual language classes. The resources are not always engaging or even developmentally appropriate, needing to be adapted. The sequence of materials is not always logical to teachers. The pacing is too fast for some students, causing us to worry that some students may miss even more. We wonder if some of these problems stem from the reorganization where the district decreased the number of people who help prepare the curriculum? We need autonomy to teach our students as appropriate for them. We are professionals. If the district insists on requiring us to use centralized resources, we need appropriate resources and supports weeks before the lessons are to be taught and enough staff to prepare these resources.

There are many time-consuming and new requirements that add little value for our students. We are required to post learning objectives, goals, and other materials on our walls. Adapting and posting these items can take time. District officials do walk-throughs but provide no feedback on our teaching. They simply look to make sure we have posted everything they want posted, making this seem like a compliance measure the adults rather than a teaching tool for students. It is not clear how these requirements help student learning. We need to be able to focus on our teaching. If we need to post specific things like objectives, we need the district to provide posters for us. The objectives also need to be written in age-appropriate language for our students.

We appreciate professional development. However, this year there has been an increased number of required trainings with a decreased amount of time provided to do these trainings. The district provides professional learning exchange days (PLED) to compensate for some of the trainings we do outside the duty day. However, these new training requirements were given after the start of the school year. Many teachers satisfied their PLED hours during the summer with professional development that enriched our teaching practice. In addition to the additional trainings, we have many new expectations, directives, and changes in content. However, we had less professional development time to prepare in the beginning of this school year. Teachers who are in the cohort needing to complete the literacy academies are required to spend even more of their off-duty time meeting the requirements, up to 60 hours. This needs to be compensated with a stipend. The district needs to provide more professional development time to meet these requirements or require fewer trainings.

There are still so many vacancies. Some teachers have large classes, which is not safe due to COVID. Some schools do not have counselors or enough TAs to help the students. The levelling process created even larger classes in some schools and much disruption. Some teachers and students had to start new content area classes four weeks into the school year. We also do not have enough substitutes, and teachers and TAs are being pulled to teach classes, sometimes without compensation. We need the district to provide adequate staff and resources for us to do our jobs.

We have questions about what we do when our students quarantine. One teacher had an entire class quarantined but was not allowed to use Blend to teach the students. Schools are contact tracing in different ways. There are some schools where COVID protocols are not being enforced. We need clear protocols that are enforced in order to keep our students, their families, and our staff safe.

School has been in session for a short time, and we are already exhausted. This does not make us better teachers. In fact, our exhaustion will lead to negative impacts on our students. Even worse, these top-down requirements suck the joy out of learning for the students. The district’s strategic plan scorecard includes goals related to teacher and staff retention. Making us so exhausted and demoralized does not encourage teachers and staff to remain in AISD. The scorecard also includes goals for staff and student satisfaction. The way teachers are required to teach does not provide a satisfying experience for teachers or students. We want the district to change the way it is treating teachers, staff, and students. If it does this, we can meet these goals.