UPGRADE THE DEFAULT™
Every school has default responses to daily demands. A teacher is absent. A meeting needs to happen. Another initiative adds work. The usual solution often draws from the same place: teachers’ planning time. Those decisions carry a cost. Work intended for the planning period moves into lunch, after school, evenings, and weekends. Upgrade the Default helps school leaders examine the routines and decisions that shape teacher workload. Through practical training, leaders identify Planning-Period Pressure Points and explore alternatives for coverage, meetings, communication, and competing demands. The guiding question is simple: Who is carrying the cost of our current default? Leaders leave with specific changes to strengthen planning-time conditions and support more sustainable workdays.
WHAT THE NUMBERS SAY
WHAT TEACHERS ARE SAYING
THE PLANNING PERIOD LITERACY™ APPROACH
Planning Period Literacy™ treats the planning period as a professional practice that can be taught, supported, and strengthened. The approach brings school conditions and teacher skill together. School leaders create the conditions that protect planning time. Teachers learn practical ways to set priorities, structure focused work, and use the time strategically. Sustainable Teaching Solutions helps schools put both pieces in place through research-informed professional learning and leadership support. This shared approach reduces fragmentation, supports teacher sustainability, and helps more work stay within the school day.
TEACHER’S EDITION BLOG
ABOUT
Carla Erskin is an educator, author, and certified productivity coach with 15 years of classroom experience. She is the founder of Sustainable Teaching Solutions and the creator of Planning Period Literacy™, a professional practice that helps schools protect planning time and equips teachers with the skills to structure and use it strategically.
Carla’s work is grounded in classroom reality and informed by her Teacher Planning Period Survey of 414 educators. The findings revealed a clear gap between giving teachers planning time and preparing them to use that time within a school day shaped by meetings, interruptions, documentation, and competing demands.
She introduced Planning Period Literacy™ in an article published in Education Week. Through research-informed professional learning and leadership support, Carla now helps schools and districts build a shared approach to planning time that supports focused work, teacher sustainability, and more manageable workloads.
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Interested in sustainable teaching solutions, educator support, workshops, or collaboration opportunities?
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