5 Steps for Teachers to Say "No" to Extra Duties in a Professional and Comfortable Way

Welcome to a revolutionary episode where you'll learn the elusive art of saying 'no'. As educators, we often find ourselves donating countless hours to the school system, sometimes to our own detriment. So, how exactly do we find the delicate balance between lending a helping hand and overextending ourselves? Immerse yourself in our discussion as we explore this predicament, offering you strategies to take control of your commitments and establish healthier boundaries. 

We begin by tackling the challenging task of strategic planning and duty evaluation. We guide you through creating a clear and organized plan for your personal life at the start of the year. We also help you to understand the importance of choosing duties based on passion rather than obligation. Then, we navigate the complex journey of saying 'no' in a student-focused way, empowering you with a five-step guide to frame your refusal as a decision in the students' best interest. Trust us, the more you practice, the easier it gets.

We wrap up our in-depth discussion with the importance of setting boundaries, a crucial aspect of being an educator. This might involve saying 'no' to pushy coworkers and parents while maintaining a cooperative attitude. Not to worry, we've got your back. We even share a sneak peek into my book, The Ultimate Boundaries Playbook for Teachers, filled with practical scripts for those tough conversations. This episode is your guide to finding balance and preserving your energy, enabling you to continue being the best educator you can be. Tune in!

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 1:52

There isn't an educator. I know that couldn't benefit from today's episode, myself included. This is something we all need to do a better job with. What is it? It is saying no, getting comfortable, saying no in a way that is positive and student focused, saying no to all those extra duties that go above and beyond what you're contracted to do. So in this episode, I'm going to empower you with the exact script and steps to take back control of your time and energy.

Speaker 1: 2:26

Welcome to the Balance, your Teacher Life podcast, where we talk all things avoiding educator burnout, setting healthy boundaries and achieving better work-life balance. If you're passionate about education but tired of it consuming your whole life, you have found your home in the podcast universe. I'm your host, grace Stevens, and let's get going with today's show, alright. So here we go. If you think you are alone in being overworked as an educator, I'm here to tell you you are wrong. It is an epidemic, it is an expectation, it is not. Well, it is the way it is, but it doesn't need to be that way. Right, and I want to empower you to try and take back some of your time. Do you know that the average American teacher donates 15 hours a week to the school system. That's crazy, y'all. 15 hours a week, now listen, I'm never going to be the teacher who tells you, oh, just work, contract hours. We all know that's not realistic. I don't think it's possible, I don't think it's sustainable. However, somewhere between contract hours and donating 15 hours a week to the school system, there is a happy medium, and I want to help you get through that and give you some solid strategies, especially as now, at the time of broadcasting. I'm not sure when you're listening, but the time of broadcasting it's kind of back to school for a lot of teachers, and here's where it really piles on us, right, we have these adjunct duties that we are required by most school districts to take on a certain number of hours. For the last few school districts that I worked for, it was 15 hours a year. So that worked into, you know, supposedly less than half an hour a week. If we had 36 weeks of school, that doesn't sound bad, but we all know that in essence it turns out to be so much more.

Speaker 1: 4:38

So I'm gonna tell you the exact steps to go through, but first we want to start off with the idea of why we struggle with saying no Now. It's a deep, deep epidemic in our industry and I feel that there are a lot of reasons for it. I'm probably gonna do a whole episode for it, but all I want to say here is you are not alone. For most educators, it is difficult for us to say no Again. It's kind of our, our culture, and we get easily guilt-tripped into things right. So many things got taken out of the curriculum, especially when I started teaching. There was really like a cutting back and getting rid of art and music and any kind of enrichment, and so if we wanted students to have that, we needed to do it ourselves. Right, we would get easily guilted into it. But it started this pattern of every time there's something new to do or additional to do or supplemental to do, it just gets put on the back of teachers. And if you're an administrator, I'm not blaming you it comes down the pipe, right. You have more than enough that you need to do too, so you could probably benefit from gaining comfort and clarity and confidence in saying no to. There's nobody who couldn't do a better job of this. I don't think in education and it is. I don't want to say it's the work of a lifetime, it's a skill, even if you say, well, it's not in my nature, it's a skill. Will it feel a little weird at first? Of course it will, but the more you do it, the easier it become.

Speaker 1: 6:26

So let's start off with this. First off, let's say it's the beginning of the year, that you're listening to this, do a little strategic planning. What do I mean by that? You know, at the beginning of the year you pull out your brand new planner. I mean, is there anything better than a brand new teacher planner? Like it, love it. Right, get out your flare pens, color coded, love it. And most of us will put in a scope and sequence for the whole year, as far as the curriculum is concerned, of how we're going to fit it in. How is it going to fit in logically, how are we going to make sure, right, that it all gets covered before end of year, testing, all those things. So everybody is used to doing a scope and sequence for their curriculum.

Speaker 1: 7:15

What about your personal life? Your personal life has a rhythm to it too. For most people, especially if you have children and they, a lot of your home life revolves around their activities and their season of being busy, depending on what they're involved in, and so I'm encouraging everybody that step one is to go ahead and make a scope of sequence for the whole year for what your family life looks like. Right, because that is something you want to put in the back of your mind when you look at adjunct duties, and I think it's a step. It seems so obvious but so many of us miss it. I know for years I did so have an idea of what the map of your personal life is going to look like for the year before you start signing up for duties.

Speaker 1: 8:07

And then let's do a kind of inventory. Okay, do an inventory of when school starts. Are there things they're already expecting you to volunteer for, simply because you're always the person who does that, right? So if you're the I'm gonna say the eighth grade teacher, right? Or the 12th grade teacher, graduation is probably falling on you, right, that that's. You're the last teacher to have those students in that school, usually, okay, so that's probably expected of you. What about your book? What about school site council? What about? Oh, this person always does that. This person always coaches that.

Speaker 1: 8:48

I showed up at a school and I maybe had an interest of doing something and I was told in no short order that a person on that campus had done that for 32 years. 32 years, so don't touch that duty. So see, is it already expected of you right then go through and look how many of those are stipend. So I understand that a lot of teachers sign up for duties. There's fierce competition for the duties that come with a stipend. And so go through and see, do you want to drop this duty, but you need the money. I mean, those are personal kind of situations that you need to take into account. But look at it that way. And then the last thing I would encourage you really, when you evaluate what you're going to take on and what you're not going to take on, is evaluate based on passion. Now hear me out. We're not all passionate about the same things, thank goodness. I'm never going to want to coach a sport Good Lord, that is not me, okay but I'm always going to be passionate about anything to do with students, even if it's tutoring. Gosh. I volunteer tutor after school for over a decade, always passionate about anything to do with science.

Speaker 1: 10:16

Right when I was looking at duties, I always wanted something that involved students and especially if they were students I'd had in the past. I loved that. It was a way to maintain that relationship. Or if they were students that I didn't usually spend all my day with, I just loved meeting new students. So that was always one of my criteria, like does it involve students? On the other hand, I had a co-worker, a teammate, for a few years. Let me tell you, at the end of the day, he was done with kids. He didn't want any duty whatsoever, any additional responsibilities that put him anywhere near a student. He wanted to make his cup of tea and he would sit in a committee, whatever, but he would not do anything to do with students.

Speaker 1: 11:07

Now he one time I got put into a committee that I didn't understand what it was going to be and it was, you know, unpacking the standards. Now it was presented to me as it was all about science. How exciting, and the school knew that I was really invested in science and that's what I'd like to do, just on a volunteer basis. We didn't actually at that time for, in fact, have a son a science teacher, but I did a lot of enrichment with that with the students after school, and so this has been sold to me. In fact, does this sound familiar? It wasn't sold to me, I was voluntold. Like, by the time somebody came to me with that, they'd already put my name forward. Right, it was fixing somebody else's problem is what I'm going to say about that. They needed to come up with a name. They put my name forward without asking me first. And now I'm kind of being voluntold, I'm being. You know how it is.

Speaker 1: 12:05

It starts off with a compliment oh, miss Stevens, you'd be so great at this. Right, watch out for those compliments, but anyway. So I was voluntold to take on this committee where we were supposedly unpacking the standards. Oh, my gosh, do you know what that looks like? It looks like taking out pages of curriculum and discussing individual words ad nauseam. And I'm going to tell you that's what I call an ice picker. An ice picker meeting or an ice picker committee, is one where I would rather stick a pickaxe in my eye than sit in that meeting any longer. Right, but that ice picker for me, for my partner, was his dream assignment sit there with his cup of tea and barely participate. Okay, so keep these things in mind. Why? Because, as we know or maybe you don't know yet, as this is one of my first episodes, but if you know my work from anywhere else.

Speaker 1: 13:05

One of my big big things is your energy teaches more than your lesson plans. You've got to protect your energy, your enthusiasm, above all, like if you end up with an adjunct duty that you really don't care for. You don't show up as your best self anywhere in school. You are a low key, resentful, irritated every time an email comes through about it, like they're not getting your best self. But, worse than that, neither are your students. You're just irritated, right? We don't want that. We want to be doing things we're passionate about, and I'm not about saying no because I don't like working hard. I'm going to give you an example of that.

Speaker 1: 13:46

For 16 years, I put on a digital planetarium for the school I work for. Now you know what that involved first off, getting trained on a Saturday and getting retrained every couple of years. Then Friday after school driving 40 miles to pick this thing up super heavy. It's basically a huge inflatable dome. So much fun, like the kids crawling into a giant jiffy pop if you're old enough to remember what a jiffy pop is right. But it needed these huge fans to keep it inflated. When I started doing it was before it was even digital. It was these canisters of this projector. I mean, this thing was so heavy, so you get the idea.

Speaker 1: 14:25

So had to go pick it up, needed to get you know the best vehicle to go pick it up. Come in over the weekend, set it up. Then it took a whole week to get all the students, all the grades, through the star lab. So I needed to write subplans for the whole week. Then I was taking kids from K through 8 through star lab. I needed like curriculum for that, for what I was teaching them while they were in there. We didn't just get to lay on our backs and, you know, look at the stars. I think I was curriculum for that. Okay, then I would put on an astronomy night. I would hire astronomers to come out, I would have activities for the kids and then I would have even bring parents through star lab. So all and then on the Friday, when I was beyond exhausted, pack the whole thing up and drive it back 40 miles. So I'm going to tell you how much work was that a turn.

Speaker 1: 15:22

Was it a nice picker for me? No way, it was a bucket filler. I loved it. It was my favorite thing to do because it just all the little kids when they come in. Oh, and when they'd see me on campus. Are we gonna do star lab this year, mrs S? Like it was just magical, right? That's the difference between something that lights you up if you're a music or band teacher, those concerts light you up. If you're not, if you're me, I don't want to hear your kids struggling on a violin. I just don't. It's not me, okay. Not everybody has the same interest and the world is a beautiful place for that.

Speaker 1: 16:01

So, where you can, when you have to take adjunct duties, your criteria, as well as is there a stipend should be. Do I care about this? Like, how annoyed am I going to be sitting on this committee? Or is it something that's going to really light me up? Okay, so just think about that. And another quick before we get into the actual strategies. You're like, how do I say no, that's what I signed up for. Okay, but just a little extra motivation.

Speaker 1: 16:35

It is uncomfortable to say no. However, a new mindset that might help you is just remember every no that you say is you saying yes to something else. So you saying no to, you know, the ice picker. Is you saying yes to having more time with your family, having more energy, feeling more excited about school and saying yes to something else that you do want to do, okay. So every no that you say is a yes to something else and, conversely, every yes you say is a no to something else, right? So just try and remember that. What is this yes going to cost me? Right, if saying no cost me a few minutes of discomfort, but I'm going to coach you in a minute in a way that will make it more comfortable, that you don't need to stay in that moment of discomfort, okay. But what is it really costing me in the long run? Isn't it worth being uncomfortable for just a minute rather than being resentful for the rest of the year every time that meeting committee whatever comes up? Okay, all right.

Speaker 1: 17:49

So now we got our minds in the the right place. Let's summarize here that before, if it is the beginning of the year before we have that. Now I don't know what your system is for that, like I've worked in different school districts, you know what I'm talking about. The sign-up sheet, right. Some districts you get to pick a number right, so that it's very competitive. Who wants to get the, the best duties, the stipend duties, the easy duties. Like I'm saying to, what easy to one person is hard to somebody else. So get that out of your mindset. Don't be like, oh, my number is 36, I'm only gonna have the you know, the unpleasant duties left to pick, because maybe what? Maybe passionate for you, okay, or it could be based on tenure there's all kinds of way people do it. But anyway, get your, get your mindset set before you do that and have the idea about the scope and sequence for your personal life before you do it. Right, if you know that you're, I mean this is an obvious example.

Speaker 1: 18:49

If your child is graduating this year, do not volunteer or get volunteered or roped into being in charge of graduation. You don't want there to be any conflict of times, of energy right Of you coordinating graduation for somebody else's children and neglecting all the energy and excitement that you should be putting into your own child's graduation, right? So let's say you are the eighth grade teacher or the twelfth grade teacher. Then go to the admin at the beginning of the year and be very clear and say, listen, I have my own child graduating this year. I've dedicated my life to serving other people's children. I need to serve my own child this year when it comes to graduation, and even though I am the eighth grade teacher, I am stepping back a little and some other staff member or parent or somebody needs to step up and take care of helping or leading the way with graduation. I can support, but I'm not going to drive it like I have in other years. Okay, so that's when I mean take a look at the scope and sequence of your own life. Okay, all right.

Speaker 1: 19:58

So here we're getting to the secret source. How do we say no In a way that is comp-dor for us? And here's the piece that a lot of people miss, that makes it uncomfortable for them. Because in a way that student focused right, if you come up with a way that is based on the needs of your student, nobody, nobody, nobody can argue with that Not a board member, not a parent, not an administrator. Are they going to argue that you're putting your students' needs first? Come on right. So your reason for not doing something is not going to be it's not in my contract or I'm not passionate about it. The reason is going to be a student focused reason.

Speaker 1: 20:46

I'm going to help you figure out some of those in a minute, but first here are the steps. I call them the five steps, the anatomy of a no. So you ready. You might want to take notes. Remember that the show notes will live on my blog and they have. That's Grace Stevenscom and that will have all your will be blog slash two, which means episode two, and it will have all the show notes right there. Okay. So step one. I mean, if you're driving, I don't want you to be writing this down now, obviously. So the first step is buy yourself some time. So good news, you only have to remember step one, because then you can go look at your notes. Right. So step one is buy yourself some time. What does that look like? Right, when do we say yes the most? Okay.

Speaker 1: 21:39

So if I described one area in which we get roped into, let's say signing up for the adjuncts, right, we've got the list, we've given our number. You have to choose certain adjuncts. That's one way, but the other way is we get ambushed, right, super ambushed. You know that's true. You're on your way to your classroom, your hands are full, you live in your best teacher life. You just whoa, you managed to go to the restroom and pick up some coffees during recess. Off you go, you've got your key, your balance and everything, and somebody comes up from behind you and, low and behind you, ambushed, it starts with a compliment oh, you'd be so good at this. And then, before you know it, you flustered and said yes, because you didn't know what else to do and you're worried about what you know playground trauma. You're going to have to play crime scenes, csi to unravel, right, you know, you know it is. The longer those kids stand in line unsupervised, the more drama is going to unfold.

Speaker 1: 22:39

So you just say yes, because you need to get on with something else. Don't do it. Okay, buy yourself some time. And that just looks like let me look at my schedule and get back to you, or let me give it some thought and get back to you, or you know my head's not in the right place right now to commit to something. Let me think about it and get back to you, and you could even ask could you make that request in writing please, so I don't miss any details. Okay, number one if you've got the world's laziest, middle and straighter, they'll just go ask somebody else because they don't want to put in writing. Number two you have a paper trail, all right, so you just number one, buy yourself some time, okay. So then you've already decided it's something you want, don't want to do. You Get back to the person in writing. Why, again, paper trail Two time to put your thoughts together.

Speaker 1: 23:30

Do not apologize, don't say sorry, don't say unfortunately, just be matter of fact. You're not doing it. There are these four magic words, and the magic words are as it turns out. As it turns out. Do you know that? I believe the? You know the Apple Genius Bar? I've heard this. I don't know if it's true, but that's why I originally latched onto this term was somebody said at the Apple Genius Bar, the geniuses are trained not to say no. They can't say no to you and they can't say unfortunately. They have to say as it turns out. So let's say you go with. You know a cracked screen, is it still under warranty? They're going to say, as it turns out, your warranty expired such and such. You see that they're not saying no or, more likely, as it turns up, your phone is eligible for an upgrade. You know how we all fall down, that you know rabbit hole.

Speaker 1: 24:26

So you're going to use the words as it turns out and then you're going to give the student focused reason. Let's have an example. Maybe you're new to the grade assignment, right, you just got shoved in a new grade, changed grades for the third time in five years, right? New curriculums, new standards, whatever. Maybe you're teaching a split class oh wow, is there anything more stressful than teaching a split? That your administrator tells you it's no problem. These children just do this grade, does this independently, while you direct, instruct them, and then you flip it Like and we all know that these students these days are having a hard time doing anything independently. Topic for a different day, however. So let's just give that as an example. Your student focus reason would be, as you are aware, as it turns out, this is my first year in this grade assignment.

Speaker 1: 25:27

I feel any extra time that I have needs to be dedicated to getting comfortable with the curriculum to best meet the needs of my students. Now I am, in my writing and my work in this podcast, hopefully anti jargon, like. I don't like all the jargon. Here's the place to pull it out Any time. You can throw in, you know, differentiated instructions, data driven instruction, right, accommodating students, diverse learning needs. You get the idea. Throw the jargon in there. The more jargon you have, the less. They could ever come back to you and say, yeah, no, I don't agree, they do it. You should be doing this right that you should be putting in your time to learning, differentiate in this new curriculum to best meet the needs of your students.

Speaker 1: 26:16

Like there's nobody can say anything to that right, okay, and then you thank the person for thinking of you. Do that the beginning, do that the end. Kind of make it like you know the compliment sandwich. You're probably Aware of that strategy. In fact, that strategy might be how you get roped into lots of things you don't want to do because it's a strategy that your Admin uses. Right, compliment stamp sandwich. Start with compliment, slip in in the middle the stuff you want, and with the, in this case, we're gonna slip in the middle the stuff we don't want.

Speaker 1: 26:52

Alright, so here's an example that say you me. In this case, let's say I was getting invited to something I know is gonna be the ice picker. Oh, my gosh, right. So I'm just gonna say thanks for thinking of me, let my check, let me check my schedule and get back to you. Sometimes I even said to people oh, you know what? I have a policy I don't take on any new commitments without 24 consider 24 hour consideration period. Now, that might not be your style or not, but you might just be more casual and say, hey, let me check and get back to you, okay, and then you get back in writing, right and so, dear principal, thank you for your invitation to represent our school, the district, while committal curriculum committee.

Speaker 1: 27:37

As it turns out, I am unable to participate this year. You may remember that I find myself in a challenging situation this year, with many students struggling with the skills they need to succeed in this grade. I'll be dedicated any extra time I have to developing and implementing interventions and help remediate their academic deficiencies. Oh, my gosh, when you can't and how many buzzwords were in there, how much jargon. I think I need to go stuff that Okay, and then you just fit. I mean, if you want to throw your coworkers under the bus, you can throw in. I'm confident many other qualified staff members can effectively represent our school. I mean that's if you want to throw your coworkers under the bus, otherwise you could. Just, you know, respectfully and your name. Thanks again for thinking of me and your name, right? So give yourself some time, that's the most important thing by yourself sometime so that you have time to sit down and think about what is a student focused reason I can give for declining and put your answer in writing so you have time to gather your thoughts.

Speaker 1: 28:43

You know there's nothing worse than you stuck there, like I said, with your hands full of stuff and you like, and you and you say yes just because because you feel awkward. Okay, I know that you can do this again. It's a mindset shift. Are we comfortable saying no, actually? No, we're not. We don't have role models in that area and for many of us in it really is profession wide is really a problem because it leads to only to tell you resentment, burnout, overwhelm, exhaustion all the things that make us overall unpleasant to be around and ineffective as teachers. That's really what it boils down to. Like I want you to have a more positive teaching experience. Why? Because you deserve it To. I don't want you to burn out. Why? Not only because it's bad for you, but it's bad for kids, right, it's not why we got into teaching. Okay, so I hope you find this helpful. Maybe you want to go to, like I said, go to the website and Grace Stevens dot com, just go. Actually great stevens dot com forward slash podcast. You can find the episode and show notes there. I'm sure there are show notes on wherever you're listening to this podcast and Take notes and it print out the strategies, whatever just put in your mind.

Speaker 1: 30:15

The mindset piece comes first and that is when you're saying yes to something, you are saying no to something else. And also I know that it's like an meme, I think and what was the first person to say that? No is a complete sentence. But you know, we're professionals, right, we're professional, and we really don't want to just say no or, like I said, even worse, no, it's not in my contract, like I know that we read. One of the reasons we don't want to say no, I think for a lot of us, is we don't want to be Kind of interpreted or seen as inflexible and helpful, not in player. You know all those things.

Speaker 1: 31:00

Like I said, we get kind of Guilted into stuff and it's not resourceful and I'm just going to tell you one quick story and one quick aside, and that is remember when I gave you the script for your letter right there and I said I'm sure there are plenty of other capable staff members. You know, that kind of is a little bit throwing your coworkers under the bus. Let me tell you how one time I got thrown under the bus and just you know, be aware, especially if you are new in a district or a school, there might be all kinds of things that staff members there know that they're not exactly sharing with you. So let me give you one example is that this one school that I worked out fabulous school, loved it and part of the adjuncts, like you, needed to sign up for certain things. But above and beyond that, it was a requirement that every staff member there were only like 14 of us had to go to a school board meeting or a parent, a PFA meeting, parent faculty meeting.

Speaker 1: 32:06

That was monthly and if you were newer you had to go to two. Right, but anyway, there was a sign up for the month. Wow, for which month, like the whole year was posted, and it was very casual. It was just in the staff room. People sign up for the month that they wanted to go and I noticed everybody racing over and me, like you know, wanting to be accommodating. I don't mind whatever month works for everybody else. So of course I signed up, for I think it was September, and lo and behold. What I didn't realize is that was the big parent faculty meeting before our annual fundraiser, which was two months later, and I was the only person to go to that. And in that meeting they were going to, you know, beg, demand or however you want to say it go into whoever the teacher was who went into coordinating the raffle tickets.

Speaker 1: 33:02

Now, I know that doesn't sound like an awful big task, but it was. It was making some spreadsheet tracking. We just had this weird thing that we would send 10 packets home with every kid and that we would track how many they sold and if they needed more, they needed to come in with a form and it. It was just like a full time job tracking this and when they and this seems like the smallest detail, but it was the biggest ice picker for me when all these little stubs of the books of 10 came back, you had to take a stapler and unstable the little stubs, which I know you're like nitpicking, like lady, why can't you do in front of the television? Well, I, there were so many other things I was doing, so I had really got thrown under the bus and I did make. I was just annoyed about it the whole time. But I, in fact I'd even said my gosh, if I win this raffle, I'm like giving the money back. I was just so annoyed about it. I mean I never said that in front of the students and we did. We worked our way around it. We made it a classroom job. Kids looked at it as a reward. Whoever was finished with math you know earliest could go to the back table and get out the stable remover and, you know, organize these tickets. They thought it was fun.

Speaker 1: 34:17

But all that to say, be strategic. If you notice people aren't signing up for a certain thing, maybe ask some questions. Why, right, try and protect your energy. That's what this all falls under. Okay, it all falls under the umbrella of being proactive. Don't be a victim. If you get signed up for something, you know when you hear that coworker complaining and complaining, complaining about a nice picker, and you're like, oh my gosh, how did you get rubbed into that? And then they say I volunteered. Like, don't be that person. Okay, like, get yourself some skills. Are we always comfortable saying no? No, I've given you the script. I've given you the secret sources to make it student focused and to reply and write things. You have time to get your ideas together, and I really think that's going to help and I think that the investment you put into learning how to do these things will really pay off.

Speaker 1: 35:21

And if you are interested in learning more obviously, this is a topic I'm going to go over multiple times during this podcast. We need to hear it different times, different ways, different ways in which to say no, but it basically falls under the topic of setting boundaries, and if you can't wait for more episodes and you've got 10 bucks to spare, you can hop on over to Amazon. I have a book called the ultimate boundaries playbook for teachers. It has all the scripts in there, not just for saying no, but to extra duties. That's just the tip of the iceberg, right? But how do you say no to pushy coworkers to well, you know parents who have ridiculous expectations and requests, all those things. So, anyway, I'll just put that out there. I'll put the link in the show notes If you want to get the complete boundaries playbook. It's super affordable and easy to get through. Okay, that's it. So hopefully we learned something this week. I am excited you are here and I will see you in the next episode.