Frontline Blog

We’ve all had those days when we walked into unfamiliar situations: the first day in a new school, that first middle school dance, a job at a new company. If we were lucky, some caring individual came alongside us to help us get our footing. Your substitute teachers face similar situations nearly every day. An unfamiliar building, locked doors, technology that they haven’t been trained how to use — not only are these frustrating and demoralizing for substitutes, they also make it really difficult to be effective.

As the school year comes to a close, it’s time to focus on the fall. How can you make sure that classrooms aren’t empty when teachers are absent next year? How can you ensure that employee absences don’t get out of control? The answer can be found in the story of a certain fictional detective and his dedication to data.

The end of the school year doesn’t mean the end of recruiting applicants: some districts report having open job opportunities throughout the summer and into the school year. Others manage to fill every vacancy, only to receive late resignations for positions that must be filled by the beginning of the school year.  These last-minute hires can be extremely stressful — and the teacher shortage doesn’t help. But with enough perseverance and the right tools, districts can keep their positions filled all year round.  

For the past ten months, employers and HR professionals around the country have been hitting “refresh” on the Department of Labor’s website, anxious for news about overtime. The proposed changes that the department issued last summer more than doubled the salary threshold above which many white collar workers are exempt from receiving overtime pay. What will the impact be for businesses and school districts? On May 18, the final overtime rule was published, and employers finally have a clear picture of what the new overtime reality will look like — and when it will take effect. Read on to find out.

Imagine a world without feedback. No, seriously — try to picture an entire workday when no one receives any information about how things are going. Chefs wouldn’t be able to taste their dishes as they cooked. Pilots wouldn’t receive course corrections from air traffic controllers. You wouldn’t want to get a haircut that day. Feedback is important in all spheres of life, including — and perhaps especially — in education. But not all feedback is created equal. What does it look like to provide meaningful, actionable feedback that supports educator growth? It would be nearly impossible to make an exhaustive list of qualities feedback should have, but this is a start. Effective, actionable feedback should:

There are a few general truths when it comes to the end of the school year. Students get restless, the weather gets warmer and absence rates rise. And we don’t just mean student absences — teachers and other district employees tend to take more time off in the spring, too.  How do we know this? It’s not just intuition — this is confirmed by data from the Frontline Research and Learning Institute’s March absence report. Let’s take a look at the report’s key findings and what they could mean for your district.

Here’s one history lesson you won’t find in your schools’ textbooks.  Have you noticed the deluge of news articles about the teacher shortage lately? Writers across the country declare that there’s a crisis upon us. Without enough teachers, class sizes are increasing and more schools are relying on long-term substitutes to lead classrooms — to the detriment of student learning. The reason for vacant teaching positions varies depending on whom you ask: teaching doesn’t pay as well as other careers, too few students graduate with education degrees, licensing requirements are too strict, or the current political climate is unfavorable to educators. But is this really a new problem for districts?

Many evaluation processes provide opportunities for evaluators and teachers to meet about observation results. But few go so far as to co-construct evaluations. What are co-constructed evaluations, what do they look like and why are they important?

Teachers and other educational employees often have to be absent — for illness, jury duty or any number of personal reasons. But do you know how often employees are pulled out of their work for absences driven by your school or district?