Back to School 2025/26: How to Conquer the Dreaded Adjunct Duty List Without Burning Out

 Welcome back to the show. Okay, we are at part two of my 20 25, 20 26 back to school series, and this week we are going to talk all things adjunct. Oh my gosh, I can't even say the word junk duties now. I know sometimes that. Phrase, especially maybe if you're not teaching in the US, might give you some confusion because there's such a thing as an adjunct professor, right?

In college, whatever, that's a professor who doesn't have tenure. We're not talking about that. We're talking about adjunct duties, which are duties that you are compelled to sign up for due to your contract that are not part of your actual teaching job. Okay, and so we're gonna talk about the strategy for that.

Now, I have lots of strategies for saying no. You may be aware of some of those episodes. How to say no when somebody asks you to take on an extra duty, an extra committee that is, you know, nothing to do with your job. How do you say no to that in a professional student focused way? Talked about that a lot.

You really need to step by step, deep dive into that. Go back, right back to episode two. Talk a lot about how do you say no or if you can't say no, how do you say yes with limitations to requests that are in your area of expertise? So for example, let's say you're the science teacher. You can't say no to putting on science fair or science camp or all those things, right?

I mean, that's part, you're the science teacher, however you can say yes with limitations. So that's a different strategy. And if you want more information on that. Go check out episode 48. I broke that down very specifically with scripts and everything else. Okay, so I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about it's the beginning of the year, it's your back to school ed and around comes the list and you are obligated per your contract to sign up for X amount of additional things, adjunct duties.

What is the strategy for that? To ensure that we're signing things up for things that align with our passion and really our desire, things that would fill us up in fact, and not with things that are just gonna drain us and we're gonna be resentful about all year long. Okay, so that's what we're talking about today.

When the dreaded list comes round. What's your strategy? Okay, there are tools, there are tips. There are mindsets. Of course. I think you're gonna all find this very helpful. So I will see you on the inside. We will talk all things. The dreaded adjunct duty list. Welcome to the teacher self-care and.

Balance podcast where we focus all things personal development to help teachers feel empowered to thrive inside and outside of the classroom. If you are passionate about education, but tired of it taking over your whole life, you have found your new home in the podcast universe, you'll love it here. I'm Grace Stevens, your host, and let's get going with today's show.

All right. Welcome to everybody if you are a loyal fan. Yes. This is week two of the Back to School, 2025. 2026. Gonna be covering things this year. I have not covered before. If you are newer to my podcast, you should know that if you are like. Oh, oh, oh. School's back in. I need a crash course. Of course there are a hundred episodes here.

You don't wanna dig through everything. Let me just point you to a couple of episodes I did for back to school that I don't plan on repeating, but are probably really important for you if you are binging right now. So, episode 60, if you go back to that one, that is about when you get your class list.

You get your class list and oh my word, you have this strong feeling that it is not equitable. Let's just put it that way. When you compare your list to other teachers lists, how do you deal with that? How do you deal with that? An emotional level? How do you deal that, you know, with a mindset and.

Practically, what can you do about that? So when your class list is giving you anxiety before the students even show up, you see the names on there that are already setting off alarm bells then, and it, and, and it seems like a disproportionate amount of those students. What do you do about that? Okay, so that's episode 60, so that's probably on the top of everybody's mind.

These coming weeks. Then episode 60. Two is why and how and all things doubling down on your back to school classroom management plan. Now I know that we, you know, we know that the beginning of the year is the time to set these standards, hold up these standards. What are the strategies for that and.

Really just, it's something that needs to intentionally, explicitly be taught and retort. And I know that there's this big push to get straight into curriculum and straight into benchmark testing and all these things, but you'll be doing yourself such a huge disservice. If you rush through teaching reteaching, being consistent, calm, consistent consequences, your back to school classroom management, plan it, you know, pay me now or pay me later.

If you rush through that stage, you are, it's a battle. You're gonna be fighting all you, you know this, but if you want some specific strategies and some reminders about that. Go back to episode 62 and then one more episode I would recommend to you, which I don't plan on touching on this back to school because the episode I gave was, you know, fully comprehensive.

Nothing more to add to it was episode 57. Now I know that. The back to school supplies and all the cutesy stuff, especially if you teach lower levels. Elementary schools, oh my gosh, the stuff that is in the stores is so darn cute. It gets me every year. That's when I really get pangs in my stomach. Like, oh no, I'm miss setting up my classroom and setting up the theme, and all those things.

So episode 57 is all about designing optimal, optimal learning environments. Like does really. Do your decorations really matter? So go listen to that episode, episode 57. So those three episodes, plus there are five in this series. This is number two. I think it would be a really good crash course in back to school.

I'm willing to guess that you're gonna learn more practical information here in these, you know, few episodes. Then stuff you can actually use and stuff that will actually help you more than sitting through that, you know, oh, days of Ed district mandated. That feels like something off a checkoff list.

Like check did the back to school pd. But it, did it really help? Did it really help your teachers? Anyway, off that soapbox, let's get to today's subject, which is the adjunct duty list. Now, if you don't know what that is. Ooh. Praise to you. Aren't you a lucky teacher? But for the most of us, it is a reality.

There are different ways in different districts that this has been handled. For me, there's a list of so many hours or so many things that need to be taken care of. So examples would be. On. In some districts, it actually has yard duties on their yard duty before the school duty dismissal duty, all those things in other schools, like that's just, you're gonna get that no matter what.

That doesn't even count. That's just part of your teacher. You're gonna be getting some of that duty. But other things on there would be different committees. There would be. Supervising sports events. There would be a yearbook, there would be graduation organizing. Just all kinds of things, all the crazy stuff that we don't even think about that goes down to running a school that has nothing to do with actual, you know, teaching the curriculum.

There are so many other things and there are only so many administrators and there are only so many parent volunteers who are either a qualified, interested whatever. In helping out with these things. It's not appropriate for them to do some of them, so who has to do it? That's right, the teaching staff and in the two districts I worked for and talking to other educators, it usually is written into your contract that you need to sign up for X amount of hours.

Seems pretty typical that you need to sign up for between 50 and 20 additional hours in your contract throughout the year, which gets broken down to, oh, it's only half an hour a week. Okay. Yeah. It is only half an hour a week if you average it out. But think you only have four prep periods anyway, right?

We don't really have five. 'cause one of those is always a staff meeting or some ELC or something on our early release day. So if you only have four prep periods in the best of circumstances, like you didn't get pulled to cover another. Class or you weren't pulled into an IEP meeting or something else, you know now one of those has to go towards an adjunct duty.

You can see why it is annoying to teachers. We have so little extra time. So here's what I'm gonna talk about. Here are the strategies to make sure that you at least are doing something that isn't going to wear you out more. In an ideal world, there might be something even that will add to your joy and help you feel fulfilled.

I know that is the best case scenario, but I promise it can be true. Now, it depends how your district sets this up. Some places I've worked, it's based on tenure. There will be a list of all. The duties that need to be covered, how many hours they are, and based on tenure, the person who's been there the longest gets to choose first.

And so if you're the newbie, you're going to get left with the the crap duties that no one wants or are you. Maybe listen, one person's crap duty is another person's dream duty. I just wanna reiterate, you gotta start from that mindset first. Okay? We'll come back to that in a second. But that's one way of doing it.

Another way. In another district I've had, because there was some queen bees, it was a small district. There were some queen bees who had been on that campus, you know, two decades, and they just snapped up everything that had a stipend. It's basically what it boil down to. And people were annoyed at that.

And so we drew sticks or we drew numbers and then, or drew cards to who, what order people would go around. Okay. But either way, if you're the last person, first mindset is, don't always assume it's gonna be the worst duty that you get stuck with because you were the last person to sign up. Okay? Just take that idea out of your mind right now.

So. What are the strategies? So the biggest thing, first we're gonna start with mindset. The mindset is that you might have to do a little negotiating, right? And the mindset is, you know. I'm gonna say, just remember that whenever you have to say no to something, what you're actually doing is saying yes to something else, right?

So if I'm saying no to a duty that I absolutely don't wanna do that is gonna wear me out and make me frustrated and resentful. What I'm doing is saying yes to finding something. I'm more aligned with passionately, something that you know, I'm saying yes to leaving school on time. I'm saying yes to more time with my family.

Right. So that little moment of discomfort if you need to negotiate and say to your admin or try and barter with another staff member, Hey, can we trade duties? You know, even though that moment isn't uncomfortable, it doesn't come natural to us. We are conditioned to be self-sacrificing to be. Consumed with guilt.

Oh, if we don't do this, if no one signs up for this duty, the kids won't have art or sports or science Olympiad, or all the things, right? We're conditioned, we're people pleasers. We're in it for the kids, so we get easily manipulated. It's true. I know. I'm just saying it as it is. Okay? So it does not come in our nature or our comfort zone to say no.

Remember, you are saying yes to something else, is what you're actually doing. That few moments of discomfort can save you a whole year of anguish. Okay? So first off, get that mindset right. Just ditch the MA attitude, right? There are things that maybe, let's say, I'm gonna say for years and years and years, it wasn't even an adjunct duty, I just got signed up for it.

I was the person who did the sssts, the student study teams for our school. It was a K eight school. I was not a special ed teacher, but they just needed somebody to coordinate the meetings, run the meetings, send out the parent interactions. All those things. I mean, that thing, it sounds like, oh, you know how big a deal is that it took up so much time and I did it for years and people had me convinced, oh, you know what, you're the only person who can do it.

You have the experience, you have this, you have that. Listen, stop it. Stop. I categorically, after five years said there are, I want somebody else to have this opportunity. Like I phrased it in all the right ways. There are other things I would like to do. I feel like I've given this a good shot. I remember what my dad always taught me, which were lots of people are convenient.

Nobody is indispensable. And I spent one year, which is one of the strategies I share when I coach teachers on Yes. With limitations like setting up a transition plan, right? And so what I did was I spent one year saying, listen, what if I. I don't wanna say hit by a bus tomorrow. What if I won the lottery tomorrow?

What if I got to call in Rich tomorrow and nobody has the skills to do this? Nobody has the knowledge. There's a binder. I had to work my way through. I had to find out my own best practices. Let me spend a year training somebody they can come to. Maybe every other meeting. Not to every meeting, but they can.

See the process and then they can be successful with this. Okay? And lo and behold, guess what happened that next year when everybody understood I would not be signing up for that duty, suddenly that duty was stipend. Listen, I did it five years with without a penny. Okay? I did it for the kids, so I'm not resentful about that.

But it was a bit of a slap in the face. Not only was it stipend. The teacher was a, was given a substitute teacher, like one morning a month in order to do all the paperwork and get it all organized. I was doing it after school, my prep time, so clearly, you know, they knew that this was a high value.

Position that they needed to get filled and they were willing to ante up to make it a little better for somebody. And the person who took that duty on was actually learning to be a, a special ed teacher. And they were a general ed teacher, but then they were learning a. They were getting their sped credential, and so it was perfect for them.

It actually fulfilled some of their requirements for their coursework. It was a win win win for them. They got paid, they got extra experience. It helped with their coursework. They got a substitute to help 'em with that. Okay, so why was I the. The schmuck doing it for five years. Right. Okay. So that's just an example.

Okay. So lots of people are convenient, nobody's indispensable, don't get guilted into things. So that's a little mind piece thing. What I wanna just, and just remember it is nor not normal in a career, we have normalized that. I'm not sure what the statistics are elsewhere in the world. I'm sure they're similar, but in the United States.

On average, your average public school teacher donates, donates, fif 10 to 15 hours a week to the school system, right? Unpaid hours. That's a crazy amount. We've normalized it. It's our culture. It's what we do. We're teachers, this is how we roll. We sometimes even, you know, kind of, celebrate it. Like, oh yeah, we wear it like a badge of honor.

We gotta stop it. It's not normal. Other, you know, maybe if you are a doctor or a nurse or other things, you know, saving lives, it's appropriate. But for us, it should not be. Okay. So here's the other thing. All right, so you're gonna. Really think about now, despite where you fall in that, you know, either you're the first person to sign up or you're the last person to sign up.

There are considerations, okay? Some people have financial considerations. They're thinking, if I am going to sign up for duty, I'm only gonna sign up for things that are stipend. So that will be coaching sports, being the teacher in charge of that, you know, yearbook. Graduation, all these things you typically require now in this case, now you'd know if you're the SST coordinator.

And you're just a gen ed teacher, it's not actually part of your job, then Yeah. Go, go ask for that stipend. Okay. So for me, I, you could not pay me enough to sit through some of those committees. The stipend is so nominal like wow. I'll find a way to stop to go to Starbucks in the morning or something, rather than have to take that duty for a stipend.

So, but maybe that's not your financial reality. Maybe you absolutely need that stipend to pay your bills. So I do realize there's usually a scramble for teachers to sign up for the stipend positions, and if you have some queen bees on your campus who always grab all of those. Let's say there's one staff member and who's been there a long time and there are maybe eight positions of stipend, and they, even though you only need to sign up for 15 to 20 adjunct hours, they sign up for every single stipend thing.

That is not fair. You should go advocate to your administrator or to you union that there is a different way to sign up for adjuncts other than based on tenure. Okay, so let's put that out there. All right. But here's the thing. Here's the big thing to recognize. I'm gonna call it the tale of two duties, okay?

I'm going to illustrate to you how one person's just, I don't want this thing is somebody else's dream assignment, okay? So I have what I call an ice picker. You might have heard me say that before. An ice picker is a meeting, a committee. It's something that is so painful for me to sit in that I'm gonna say I would rather stick an ice pick in my eye than stay in this meeting for five more minutes.

Okay? You know that feeling. You, you are just, you wanna erupt, get me outta here. And for me, the ice pickers are always gonna be, as it turns out, the things that don't involve student contact. They're sitting in a room with a bunch of adults, some of who. May or may not actually behave like students.

There's a bunch of egos involved. There's a bunch of show of like, oh, I wanna show I'm smarter than you. It, it, it is the most for a bunch of people who teach and preach that we need student engagement, they run a meeting that is so. Stinking boring, like highlight on your sheet that we've given you read like, oh my gosh, do you not have one engagement tactic in you?

It is, just kill me now. Okay. I am not exaggerating. And for me, those things would be, let me just give you an example. Let's look at the new curriculum and unpack the standards. Let's compare these curriculums and let's find cross-curricular connections where, oh, please, come on. Good teachers know how to do that.

That's called thematic teaching. We've been doing it for years. We just keep changing the names. Okay. Or you're sitting through, oh my word. I know it's important. You know, a safety committee where you're going through these hypothetical drills. Or I was on a wellness committee for years and I don't even care if you're in my district and you hear this can shame on you.

I was on that committee for years and never once anybody talked about teacher wellness, despite the fact I tried to bring it up like we're talking about, it's a wellness committee. We're talking about putting on, yes. About vaping with students, about stress management for students SEL curriculum, putting on a farmer's market.

Nobody, but nobody's talking about teacher's mental health. What kind of wellness committee is that? So I just found that very painful to be on. Okay. And yet those meanings were maybe only once a month. A month. I mean, if you and a couple of them have got canceled, and then let's be honest, the years when they were on Zoom, I would have another window open and I would be like, you know, entering grades or doing something.

So how much of my time really was that? The amount of my time I actually spent in those meetings probably only equated to maybe, you know, six, seven hours. I'm gonna tell you, I spent more than six, seven hours complaining about that, and I know better. I do know better. I know that that's not a productive habit, but it was just, I would dread it.

Oh, no. This committee this week, it would just, ugh, they were always on a Wednesday midweek. Like, what a buzzkill, right? I wanna know. I made it over the hump. Like, oh gosh. I just dread it. And I, it just, the emotional toll it took of me wasn't worth it. It was awful. I hated it. Now. That was one adjunct duty that maybe took seven hours.

Now think about the thing. Maybe you've heard me talk about it before, but it was my most favorite thing I used to put on. I would volunteer. I don't even, it wasn't even an adjunct duty, I don't think I would volunteer to do, it was a digital star lab I would do. It was like a big, you know. It was a planetarium.

Kids could crawl in was long. Its big Jiffy Pop inflatable that you would crawl in and you would lay down and I could put on this storytelling for the younger grades. That was specific astrology curriculum that I taught to the upper grades. But it was at the beginning they were canisters. It's hard to explain.

There's a light projected through these canisters, the night sky. But then obviously it got better technology and there were. All kinds of things we could do in there. Computer generated. It was fascinating. I loved it. But you know, this thing, firstly, you had to go get trained. Every other year you had to update your certification was all day on a Saturday unpaid.

It was more than 50 miles from my home. So when I say all day on a Saturday, like, you were setting your alarm at 6:00 AM to get to this thing on time. Okay. Then, you know, it took a whole week out of my life to put this on for the kids. So I needed to write sub plans for a week. You know, that does not come without drama.

I needed to write curriculum for the Star Rab lab from grades. K through eight, certainly you're not given the same presentation. Plus it was a small school and all of those kids will go through every year and give the same presentation for every grade. They had it last year. Okay. And I would put an astronomy night, I would call local astronomies, have them come out, callate that, all the paperwork, the flyers, the fundraising in some cases.

For that, I would have to actually go on a Friday night after school again, drive 50 miles to. Pick the technology up. Had to borrow somebody's truck or van. It was a huge thing. Come in over the weekend, set it up in the gym. I mean, this thing was hours of my life. Who cared? I loved it. I loved, it was the highlight of my year.

It was the highlight of the kids years. I felt like a rock star when I would walk across campus and the kids would, it was in the, the lunch room, you know? You know, multipurpose room. So kids would see us set up on a Monday morning when they did breakfast, and they would run up to me, miss Es, miss Es, we do in Star Lab this week, right?

It was wonderful and nothing. I got paid nothing for that, and I didn't care. It filled me up. It was aligned with my passion, it was aligned with my interests, and I love doing it. Hey, now, I had a teaching partner who in his life would never sign up for an adjunct duty at hey, kids involved. At the end of the day, he was done with kids.

Him sit in a curriculum meeting something else. That was his favorite duty me ice picker, right? You see what I'm saying? It was it just different strokes for different folks. Like I only ever wanted to be involved with things that involve kids. Especially because in, you know, one school I taught and I taught first grade for many, many years, and those kids stayed in that school, I.

Another eight years after that. I had a lot of relationships with students. I loved to see them again after school. Okay. But he was done with kids. He wanted every boring committee. He would go by the least amount of time. You know, if he was, oh, okay, this one is only gonna be, you know, X amount of hours. He would do these math equations.

Let me tell you that if we needed to sign up for 15 adjunct duties, you know, some of them were 10, some of them were five, some of them, you know, you didn't have enough with one you had to take on another, so it would put you over 15 and you know, it was just the luck of the draw. Whatever he, you know, he could get it all figured out.

What was the minimum amount of minutes he could give, you know, that was his thing. Okay. Different strokes for different folks. Okay, so really advocate for yourself is what I'm saying. The first thing is to have the mindset that don't get guilted into anything. Okay? Don't need to be a martyr. You remember that just because you've always had this duty doesn't mean you always need to have it.

You know, maybe you signed up for year, but one year and now you just can't shrug this thing. Everybody's telling you, oh no, well, you know how to do it and whatever, and you take the path of least resistance. You feel that like, oh, I'll be easy just for me to do it than to train somebody else how to do it.

And you know, new people come in with fresh ideas and different ways of doing things, right? So move past the fact that you feel, just 'cause you've always done it doesn't mean you always need to do it. Right. And conversely, if there's something you've always wanted to do. But somebody has always hogged it, volunteer.

Ask them, Hey, at some point in the future, I would love to take this duty over. Can I get a little involved this year so that we have a transition plan? Or let's say, you know, when you retire, somebody else can take this on. Right? Be a little strategic about it. And then the other thing I would say is yes, really advocate for yourself.

Ask yourself, does this align with really my interests, my passions? Does it align with my schedule? You know, if you know that your kid is in, you know, is on the basketball team in some other school, why? Why are you gonna volunteer to have the adjunct on basketball? Don't you wanna go cheer your child on?

Don't you wanna be free to go to the your child's games and not be supervising other people's children at basketball? Just think about it a little. What I'm saying is the tendency is as soon as you get that number, you run up and you sign yourself up for the thing that is the least amount of hours. And I'm suggesting that is not the best strategy.

Okay. Look at it. Is it something that I need the stipend or I don't need the stipend? To be honest, I didn't sign up for things that needed that gave stipends because I knew there were a couple of staff members that. That was really important too, and I, for me, it just, you know, I, it was, I don't mean to sound, you know, blase or whatever, but I was, I was always working two jobs.

I've had a side hustle for many years. For me, it was like, you know, I could spend that time. Doing something else that could generate me income and that person could have that stipend. So that's kind of the mentality I took towards it. Although I am gonna say it did, it was like putting a little sort in the wound that after I, you know, gave up on the SSTs, somebody else is suddenly getting paid for it and getting prep time for it.

And I'm thinking, you know what? They were just went about it. They were smarter than me going about it. Yay for them. Okay. All right. So those are the strategies to adopt the mindset. That if you are uncomfortable for a little bit, it's okay. It's not normal that we self-sacrifice all the time. Okay. And then really think about what is this gonna cost me?

Is it something I'm gonna be excited to do? Is it something that's gonna fill me up? I'm gonna have fun with kids. There's a way I can make this fun and rewarding and something I look forward to. Or is it just gonna be an ice picker, or is it just something you are neutral about? You know, sometimes I needed a few extra hours.

I never listen, I'm never gonna be able to coach a sport. I'm never gonna be able to referee a sport. I don't even know the rules. But there was, you know, you could. Sign up for a few lack in a couple of hours to manage the door. What did that mean? You know, just take payment from parents or whatever kind of low key.

It wasn't the end of the world. Well, you know, look around. Just find a way to have a nice experience about it. I would make a point to be like, oh, look at all these parents showing up for their kids. Right? I'd always put a positive spin on it. That's the way I have trained my brain. You know, not, not necessarily, wasn't, wasn't gifted that Gene where I'm massively optimistic, but it is something you can learn and train yourself to do. And I had trained myself to, Hey, look at the things that I like about this situation. And rather than seeing, oh, look at all these parents being aggressive, I would be, look how passionate they are about their kids, right?

I mean, just, you know, find a way. When you've resigned yourself to your fate, what you should not do is, what I did all those years was just waste emotional energy, being annoyed and frustrated and resentful. 'cause that's just is counterproductive. It's not good for you. It's not good for kids. Like once you've signed up for something.

Or you were assigned something and it isn't what your preference was, then, you know, make peace with it. Okay? It's don't, it's half an hour. Don't let it consume more than half an hour of your energy. You know, be there, be present with it. Try and find a way to make it as painless as possible, but don't waste your time worrying about it, complaining about it, and feeling, you know, put upon unjust.

If it bothers you that much, do something about it. If it doesn't bother you that much, if you decided you don't wanna do something about it, then you know, suck it up. But a cup I always had, I had a coworker would say that it seemed like a pretty insensitive thing to say, but you know, was straight to the point.

You know, if you're not gonna do anything about it, then suck it up, but a cup, all right. Don't make the rest of us be, you know. Complaining about it in the staff room. Don't drag the rest of us down. All right, that's it. Good luck with your back to school PDs. When you see that list come out, hopefully there are no queen bees on your site who snap up everything desirable.

If you are the queen bee, come on man. Think about. Think about some newbies, cut them some slack. It's, that seems like they always end up with the worst duties. And you know, if they're a new teacher, they got enough going on. They really do kind of try and have a little grace about that. Okay. And again, if you want specific strategies for saying no to extra requests, how do we do that?

In a professional way that you are comfortable with that does not make you seem like sour grapes. You're certainly not gonna say, that's not in my contract, or, I don't have time for that, or I don't wanna do that. You know, the secret sauce there is you need to give a student focused reason why it's not best for your students.

You gotta throw in all those buzz words that I avoid, but have been proven to be, you know, top priority for your. Campus for the year, whether that's test scored or SEL or all those things. Okay. Go back and listen to episode two for step by step directions on that. And if you want to say yes with limitations, like Yeah, I, I understood when I became the music teacher, I was gonna have to put on all the concerts and all those things, but it is getting unmanageable, how do you say, Le?

Yes. And set some limitations on that. Go listen to episode 48. Okay. All right. Next in this series, all kinds of good things. Setting up a complete boundary plan will be the next one. I'm trying to cram them out a little bit more than weekly. 'cause I understand. Some people have told me they're binge listening as school is ramping back up.

So gonna try and knock a few more out and. Until next time. Remember, create your own path. Bring your own sunshine. You've got this from the bottom of my heart. Thank you for everything you do for other people's children. Listen, the world needs your sparkle. The world needs your talents, your gifts, your passion.

Especially now, find ways to bring people together, not to make them feel divided. I know you can do it, and I will talk to you soon.