What responsibility do educational leaders have in managing and mitigating teacher workloads?

Planning, teaching, grading, communicating with parents, administrative paperwork, and more: this is the workload teachers manage every day. And it’s far from easy.

Unsurprisingly, a 2024 Pew Research study on teaching in America identified teacher workload as the number one reason why teachers feel there is not enough time to get everything done. More recently, Edutopia editor Paige Tutt spoke with Laurie Santos about how time famine has a negative impact on teacher well-being. As leaders, we’ve all seen the result: burnout. And it’s far from pretty.

In my experience as an administrator who is intentional about mitigating teacher workload whenever possible, I have observed that some leaders are highly aware of how workload can impact well-being, morale, and performance, while others are not. Moreover, even the best K-12 leaders still have to contend with the constraints of budgets, schedules, school, and state-level expectations.

Leaders: Does your style of leadership account for teacher workload? If so, how do you manage what gets put on the plates of your staff within the confines of your school or district?

Teachers: How can leaders better manage teacher workloads given these constraints?