Delegating in the Classroom: How to Let Go and Lighten Your Load
Delegating in the Classroom: How to Let Go and Lighten Your Load
[00:00:00] Welcome to the eight to four teacher where we tackle the habits, routines, and mindset shifts that help teachers leave school at four without guilt. This is a space for teachers who wanna do meaningful work without working around the clock. I'm your host, Barb Flowers, and I believe you can be an amazing teacher and have a life outside of school.
Let's build a teaching life that feels sustainable and fulfilling. Let's make eight to four your new normal.
,. Today we are going to talk about delegation in the classroom to help avoid burnout and really maximize your productivity as a teacher. , I never really thought about how I delegated as a teacher until I was reflecting for this podcast episode, and I realized I delegated a lot as a teacher, and that really helped with my time management, and it helped me be more productive and get more done.
And so today we're gonna be talking about. Identifying tasks to delegate, empowering others to take responsibility, [00:01:00] and overcoming the fear of letting go of control because those are all things that could prevent you from delegating, which saves time in the long run.
I wanna start by talking about why delegation is important for teachers. First of all, we know teacher burnout is higher than ever because teachers have so much on their plate, right? There's so much happening. There's a high workload for teachers and it, you don't even know where to start.
Sometimes. The list is so long. I totally get that, and I remember being there and the more help that you have or the more you can delegate to others, the less you're going to feel overwhelmed and stressed out and thinking about all the things you have to do. And it also, if you're able to delegate, it helps you feel like you're on top of things.
And I always say productivity brings on more productivity. And when you feel like you're on top of things and you feel like you've been productive, even if it wasn't you doing it. It's going to help you be more productive, where if you feel like the list is so long, you don't even know where to start, [00:02:00] sometimes that actually makes you take inaction because you're just kind of stuck there.
Okay. So really thinking about how people can help you, and we're gonna talk about who those people are and what that looks like can be really helpful in reducing your overwhelm, which in the long run can lead to teacher burnout. So , also the benefits of delegation.
You have more time for meaningful task and more time for tasks that are aligned to things that only you can do. It also gives you more time to collaborate with your students and talk to students, parents, and other teachers, and then it can create a more supportive classroom environment. And .
So I wanted to share a couple of ways that I delegated as a teacher before we, , dive in. First of all, I didn't realize, but thinking about this. A teacher and I that collaborated and planned together, we actually shared the workload for prepping, which I loved. We would, if we were prepping a math activity, we might prep the [00:03:00] materials and either one of us might prep for both of us, or we would just say, okay, I'll do the lesson at this time, and then send over the materials.
After. We also did, , some co-teaching activities where we would have kids go in together. Our kids just, we would model a lesson and then they would, we would model a lesson and they might do activities together as a class. So that helped too. We were able to prep together, plan together, and then actually reflect on those lessons together.
Another way that we actually worked together on this is had volunteers who would help prep some of those activities if we weren't able to do it. We had volunteers that came in and , worked with both of our classes on enrichment activities. So we would alternate who was planning for that, volunteer for the enrichment activities, and the volunteer would pull our students, it was a retired teacher and do enrichment activities.
When I was a principal at our school, we had volunteers who would come do interventions that were very scripted, and our reading coach was [00:04:00] amazing and would teach. Our volunteers how to actually do the interventions. So that was a way to delegate interventions and things that, , teachers needed to do for reading improvement plans.
They could actually have a volunteer do. So again, another way that teachers were able to delegate, we helped with that and facilitate that. And then my favorite way to delegate was having people do my bulletin boards and haul decor. I am a person who does not like decorating. I know there's teachers who love it, so if you love it, maybe that's something you swap with a colleague and you help them with that and they help you with something else.
But I hated doing bulletin boards and decor and cute things. I'm just, that was not my strength. And so I love delegating that. So I really want you today to think about what task you do that can be delegated. So how do you determine, , what task to delegate? Think about what are your time consuming tasks, but they don't require your personal expertise.
So like I [00:05:00] said, bulletin boards was time consuming for me. And it, you didn't have to be a teacher to do a bulletin board, right? That wasn't my teaching expertise. I always like to think about what are the things that only I can do as a teacher who has a degree in education? So one was bulletin boards, one was enriching students.
Like I said, we had a retired teacher come help with that. But even if you don't have a retired teacher, you could have everything ready for somebody else. You could have questions ready prompts, all of that ready. And I'm not saying that, if you have somebody help enrich students or help do interventions that you're not meeting with them as well.
But it helps. That maybe for me, I only met with my enrichment group once a week to kind of check in with that, what they were working on with the volunteers, see where they're at so I could hear them read things like that. , also interventions that are wrote with the science of reading. I come from an elementary background. Everything was super scripted and , anybody could do those lesson plans if they followed [00:06:00] the plan and it be beneficial to kids, especially when we think about like kindergarten and first grade.
Where they're learning letters and sounds and it's very basic. Now, not to say that you shouldn't train volunteers because people always need trained on what the sounds are, clipping sounds, things like that, those are things that volunteers can do. Also just having someone read to the class.
I always had field students. We're close to a local university that has a lot of elementary, , field students, and so I would get those as a teacher. And then even, we had a lot in our building as a principal and I always say, really utilize those field students even if they have no experience and it was their first experience.
That's typically the field students I had, it was their first experience in an elementary. They want to do tasks. So have them read to the class, have them walk the kids to their specials, have them walk them to recess, whatever. Giving them these little responsibilities that you have, even five to 10 minutes to do other things, can [00:07:00] be really helpful.
It empowers them and gives them ownership. Or I would even do a mystery reader. So having a mystery reader, it was a parent or community member. Come in, that gave me 10 minutes. I mean, I was still there, I could be grading papers at my desk while a parent reads to the kids.
All those things just allowed me to have a few extra minutes, and kids were still engaged. So really think about what are the tasks that you could give up to somebody else, and then what are the tasks that only you can do as. The certified teacher and thinking about that, you know, lesson planning, right?
You can't delegate lesson planning. You can't delegate grading. You have to be very careful on that. I know I had teachers, I think back in high school who kids would grade and it's like, okay, that wasn't good. , but unless you're just. Checking it for completion or something like that, you really should be the one grading.
And then just thinking about things like I said, that really require your education degree is what should be [00:08:00] kind of the guidelines of what are the things you don't delegate or if it's super confidential information, you don't wanna delegate anything that's going to give away confidentiality. So think about that as you're deciding what to delegate.
So now I wanna talk about who do you delegate to? Well, first you delegate to your students. , in Ohio, that's part of the OTEZ rubric, the Ohio Teacher Evaluation System. When you look at classroom management. It is talking about giving kids ownership in the classroom, giving them that opportunity to have jobs in the classroom, take ownership, know what the things are that need to be done.
And as a principal, I saw so many classrooms and this is just one little area, , there were so messy. I thought to myself, and I would talk to teachers like, you have to have kids clean this. It's not on you to be the one cleaning the room. But I always laugh because it seemed like K through three, kindergarten, first, second, third, their classrooms were [00:09:00] cleaner because they had students be helpers and clean the classroom and take ownership.
And a lot of fourth and fifth grade teachers, I don't know if it's because as they got older, they just. Didn't have them do that. Not all of them, but some of them. And those were the messiest classrooms. And I'm like, if a kindergartner can clean their classroom, definitely a fourth or fifth grader can.
And so delegate, use your kids and have them take responsibility of their materials of cleaning up after themselves, of knowing what to do. Of having those routines. The more that you can empower your students to be involved in those classroom responsibilities, it really takes a lot of work af off of you.
, having them take ownership of classroom materials, even, during extra time or downtime. In elementary, I had simple task like. Sorting Scholastic news or doing things, I always use student helpers to help me do those things. , I would have student helpers sort my books, organize them because as kids went through them, they messed up the organization system.
[00:10:00] So instead of me spending time after school reorganizing. I had kids do that. another example is just making sure kids know where things go, what they're responsible for, because that's gonna boost their confidence. It's gonna reduce your workload, but that involves you spending more time in the beginning, going over those routines and really setting it up, in the beginning.
So it's definitely worth it to empower your students to take ownership in the classroom environment, help each other. , know where materials go. , another example just from my own child's class is computers. If you have Chromebooks, like my daughter's so good on a Chromebook, , she's just naturally really good at it.
And so the teacher said she used her to be the computer helper for all the kids. If kids had trouble logging in. She was somebody that went and helped them. So again, it saves you time, it saves you stress, utilize your students. And that was in second grade. So, , find ways that it works for you also utilize teaching assistants.
[00:11:00] I've heard this, we call them paraprofessionals, , classroom aids, whatever you call them. Use them to delegate tasks. So there are so many times that I see classroom paraprofessionals or teaching assistants not used well, and this was a huge conversation I had to have with teachers. First of all, when you have a classroom assistant, I.
And if they're there for a student on an IEP or 5 0 4, you have to know what that IEP or 5 0 4 says about having that person in the classroom. How are you utilize them? but one thing I was very passionate about is that we don't want somebody sitting with one student, you should be circulating and helping everybody.
Because what we found over time, of course, is if they sit with one student, you're really. Building dependence where that student becomes dependent on that teaching assistant or parapro, and they can't do anything without them. So you're better off to have somebody who can check in with them, but then they're doing other things.
And when I say other things, I'm not saying you're [00:12:00] using a teaching assistant or parapro to go make copies while you're teaching. They should be in the room helping, but they can also help you set up if you have them during planning or. , if kids are working independently and they have some time utilize them to help with things, now they would be okay to utilize to help with grading papers because.
, they're a district employee, but again, that shouldn't take away from them working with kids, have them help you with interventions, progress monitoring. There's all kinds of things, but the more you can utilize your teaching assistants or parapros, that's even better. And some schools don't have as many.
When I taught, we never had a parapro. In the school that I was a principal, we had a lot of parapros. So it's different in every district and I totally get that. , but if you have one, you wanna make sure that you're utilizing them well, and then utilize volunteers. This is something that I did as a teacher and something that we did in my building when I was principal.
So you wanna have parent or community volunteers help with [00:13:00] non-instructional tasks. Like I said, helping copy, helping decorate bulletin boards. Organizing class parties if you're in elementary. , sometimes parents, it can seem like more work if they're not the most helpful parent, but I've had parents who are.
So amazing that they literally do everything and I don't even have to think about it. So that's year to year based on the type of parents that you have in your class, but any kind of volunteers. I know one teacher I worked with, she had people who, she had their kids in first grade , she was so good at utilizing her volunteers that they just stayed for years because they felt like she was really utilizing them.
They got to work with kids, they got to see them make a difference. So she had three or four volunteers. Each year in her classroom, not all at once, but that would help her with things because she was just so good at utilizing them that they always wanted to come back. , and she always let them come back and she always had a lot for them to do.
It might even be like one was a grandma from ,, her granddaughter, by the time I think [00:14:00] I got there was like a senior in high school she'd been volunteering , for years. So just thinking about how you can use parent or community volunteers. We had a lot of grandparents, like I said, who would come and do, , explicit literacy interventions with kids throughout the whole building.
So we really utilize them. Just in general, but we would make sure to train them well so they knew what the activity was, how they should be doing it, and how they should teach if kids were struggling. So just finding volunteers and you might work in a school where it's really hard to find those volunteers.
I will say, when I was teaching, I worked in a district where, , I had a mix of parents, whether they would volunteer or not, but. I got some parents that would've never volunteered in the past by just reaching out and having conversations and letting them know that I would love to have them in the classroom.
Because I think sometimes parents are intimidated by the thought of coming in, or maybe it's not your traditional, , stay at home mom. , maybe it's a parent who, you know. Feels like they had a bad [00:15:00] experience in school and they really don't wanna be at the school. That was a parent that I had. And then when she felt like she was actually helping and making a difference with kids, then she wanted to come more often and it really engaged her own child in learning, knowing that she was part of the classroom and coming to volunteer.
So it might be parents that you don't even think about who might wanna come volunteer. And I know I hear from teachers like getting volunteers sometimes is more work. Anything that is more work upfront can still save you time in the long run. So just think about that. It might be more work upfront to train them, but in the long run it is going to help you with your time management.
It is going to be good for kids because they're going to have extra adults in the room and give you extra hands to help out. So now I wanna talk about overcoming the fear of letting go of control. And I think this is a common fear with teachers, right? We all want to control our classrooms. I always laugh that I love working with kids in a structured environment where I get to control that environment, what it looks like, [00:16:00] and I hear teachers say.
Again, I hear teachers say, I'm worried it'll take longer to explain it than just do it myself. Or what if it's not done the way I want it to do? What if it's not done the way I want it done? And I will just say that this takes some time. But one mindset shift you have to have is that.
Having less, one mindset shift you have to have is having less to do is better than it being perfect. And that's what always has helped me be able to get more done is I always had to think, okay, having less to do is better than it being perfect. And when I said that, then I didn't care as much.
If it was not how I would do it or wasn't perfect, I was just appreciative to have that help. But I want you to start small. You have to start by delegating something that you're comfortable letting go of first. You can't just start delegating everything at once. You have to start really small and then be very clear in your instructions and expectations so that people know what to expect and know exactly what you [00:17:00] want.
And trust that others can do the job. It's, , an opportunity to see that other people are able to do things. It helps you build community. It helps you build leadership. Like I said, it built leadership within parents. It builds leadership within kids, so you just have to trust that it's going to get done and see it as an opportunity to help the other person.
Because just remember, perfection isn't the goal when you're thinking about delegating. It's really about being efficient and collaborative, and I tell principals the same thing. It's not always about being perfect or things being done the exact way you would do it. This is what helps you be efficient.
At the end of the day when you're thinking about the mindset of the eight to four teacher, you have to think about. Do I want everything done perfect in my way, or do I want a balanced lifestyle where I can leave work every day at four o'clock? And those are really what it comes down to. If you constantly have this high expectation that's hard to meet, you could be working in your classroom for hours.
There is [00:18:00] always something you can be doing as a teacher, especially if you want everything perfect.
Just remember, having less to do is better than it being done perfectly. And remember too, you're really creating this culture of teamwork, trust, and shared responsibility in the classroom, and not only with your students. When students see you collaborating with others, they see that, parents are involved.
That paraprofessional or teachers aid is involved. They see that sense of ownership in the classroom. So it actually empowers so many people and it's great modeling for your students.
I want you to remember that the goal here is to delegate tasks to free up time for what matters most. Empower others to take responsibility and let go of the need to control everything and trust others. I really encourage your action step from this podcast is to start small and take one thing away to delegate.
And I'd love to hear your experiences or ideas for delegating. . Just a reminder that delegation is your important step in building a [00:19:00] sustainable and balanced teaching life where you can be out the door by four. Thanks for tuning into the eight to four Teacher podcast, and we'll see you here next time.
