Time: 10–15 minutes

How it helps:
AI can help you think through systems you may want to implement in your classroom. It can use context from your prompts and chats to suggest routines and expectations based on your descriptions of your students’ needs. Used well, AI can feel like a personal assistant, but keep in mind that it does not remember everything perfectly, so it helps to restate important details as you go.

How to do it:
Stay organized. If you are using ChatGPT, consider creating one dedicated project or workspace for a class, such as “3rd Grade 2026–27,” so you can keep your planning in one place. Start by sharing broad classroom context, such as grade level, class size, language needs, and learning supports, without including private student information. That context can help AI generate routines, supports, and lesson ideas that are more relevant to your classroom.

Responsible Use Guide:
When using AI in the classroom, be mindful of what works best for your students, but don’t share specific personal student data. Keep in mind that AI tools may retain or process the information you enter, so it’s important to follow your district’s policies before using them in the classroom. Also, remember AI is not a tool to use in isolation. You know your students best, and not every AI-generated idea will work given your students’ needs or strategies you have already tried. Reflection and adjustment are key to strong teaching.

Teacher evaluations are the steps taken within a formal process to assess a teacher’s skills and abilities. The elements within an evaluation vary, but they usually focus on a teacher’s pedagogical knowledge, classroom practices, communication, professionalism, and ability to maintain a safe learning environment. The ultimate purpose of any evaluation is to improve classroom instruction. This is not possible if the entire process is one annual observation with limited feedback. Teacher evaluations should be a complete system built to work in tandem with professional development within a school culture of trust.��

Similar to an evaluation in any line of work, a teacher evaluation includes an observation(s) of a teacher by a school leader with a formal outcome. In some cases, the outcome is numerical or a categorical label (i.e., 1-4 or Emerging-Proficient-Distinguished). Effective systems will rely on multiple points of data, which might include classroom observations, participation on leadership teams, collaboration with colleagues, or adherence to professional ethics. A school leader will share the process with a teacher, ensure the required elements are completed, and provide feedback to finalize the evaluation. There is a wide range of evaluation systems within the United States, and each has its own level of effectiveness.

While the US Department of Education reports that chronic absenteeism rates are slowly improving following a post-pandemic surge, schools continue to face significant challenges with poor attendance. High absenteeism rates, low academic achievement, social disengagement, and high dropout rates are often so intertwined that it can be difficult to determine which is actually the root cause, leaving school leaders searching for strategies to improve school attendance.

Knowing where to start is a challenge in itself. Improving academic achievement depends on consistent attendance, while social-emotional interventions can take years to show results. Research and resources from K-12 online learning platforms confirm that student engagement is central to student success. Studies show that strategies focused on personal engagement — such as mentoring and building strong home-school connections — have immediate positive effects on student outcomes. For this reason, efforts to reduce chronic absenteeism may work best when schools start with a deliberate focus on strengthening students’ sense of belonging, purpose, and connection.

In the United States, are provided at the state or local district. Historically, federal financial support has focused on at-risk or low-income students. These funds are regulated by the title under which they were created, i.e., Title II or Title IX.�� Each state department of education has its own formula for funding districts; these formulas use different data points to determine how much per-student funding a local board of education can expect to receive.��

The remaining funding is determined at the local level and is based on taxes. This can be a combination of property and sales taxes. At the district level, the largest expenditures are payroll (salaries and benefits), instructional materials (curriculum and technology), and operational costs (building maintenance and transportation). Each school district will then allot a certain amount of money to an individual school.��

At the local school level, funds received will be used to support instruction. This could include areas such as professional learning, classroom supplies, supplemental curriculum materials, field trips, and staff morale. Individual schools can also supplement their budget with support from a parent-teacher organization, fundraising, business partners, or community donations.��

Each school year, there will be numerous requests for financial support. The most important question for each expenditure should be: “Does it support a specific goal of the school?” If the answer is no, the request should be at least postponed, if not outright denied. If the answer is yes, the request should be considered. A fair consideration should include a comparison with other possible solutions.��

School leaders will be tasked with making budget decisions ahead of the school year. Working closely with a bookkeeper, the principal or administrative team will create line items in as many categories as necessary. It is a sound practice to create items with specific purposes to avoid spending money that is actually designated for a particular use.

There is never enough time in the day when looking through the eyes of a teacher. In fact, that is one of the reasons I enjoyed teaching at first. I loved how my days flew by. I was never staring aimlessly at the clock, waiting for the day to end. It was the exact opposite. In fact, I quickly learned that all I wanted was time to just slow down!

We all know this feeling. We know it well. If only we had more time.

There are many reasons teachers need time management strategies:

• There is so much content to cover throughout the year.
  
  
• Students have many different needs and learning styles.
  
  
• Quality lessons take time to plan.
  
  
• Documentation for students—also known as paperwork!
  
  
• There simply is not enough time.
  
  

This is why teachers’ time management is so essential. It requires intentionally checking the clock and making time to practice strategies to improve how we manage our day. Like many skills in teaching, time management improves with practice. Over time, systems and routines begin to support stronger teachers’ time management habits.

There are many strategies that teachers can use to create more time for themselves and their students. A teacher’s daily schedule has to balance instruction, planning, classroom management, relationships with students, student needs, and, let us not forget, our own self-care. Teaching requires constant time-related decision-making. Teachers who implement time management strategies are on the path to accomplishing more throughout the school year.

Time management for teachers involves creating systems, routines, and planning strategies that help teachers maximize instructional time while still meeting the many needs of their students.

Curriculum alignment is the extent to which standards, instructional materials, classroom activities, and assessments work together to support a common learning goal and ensure every educational resource points toward the same expectations.

In an aligned system:

• Standards clearly define what students should know and be able to do.
• Instructional materials are chosen to support those expectations.
• Classroom activities reinforce the targeted knowledge and skills.
• Assessments measure the learning that was intentionally taught.
• Student data reflects progress toward the standards.

When these components work together, student achievement improves because expectations are clear and consistent. But this level of coherence does not happen automatically.

It requires time for teachers to build a common understanding of:

• What the standards mean in practice.
• Ways they plan to teach them.
• How to measure student learning.

Schools must intentionally create space in schedules for this calibration process to occur, so that consistency in teaching, student experience, and progress measurement can take hold.

When alignment is not strong, challenges begin to surface. For example:

• Teachers may emphasize skills that are not reflected in assessments.
• Assessments may measure expectations that were not the focus of instruction.
• Teams may assume a common understanding of standards or of what proficiency looks like without ever testing that assumption.

Over time, these differences add up, and the gaps between classrooms and in achievement data become more pronounced.

Curriculum alignment alone does not guarantee results. However, without it, even the best instructional strategies will struggle to produce steady, lasting growth. No single teacher, no matter how skilled, can drive schoolwide success in isolation. Schoolwide improvement happens when teachers across classrooms and grade levels work from common expectations.

When those expectations are aligned:

• Professional learning communities gain clarity.
• MTSS efforts become more focused.
• High-quality instructional materials are implemented with greater purpose.

In short, curriculum alignment allows the work already underway to have a greater impact.

1. Student-Centered
2. Teacher Support
3. Research-Based
4. Standards Addressed

The term High-Quality Instructional Materials (HQIM) refers to classroom materials that are directly aligned with state standards, incorporate evidence-based practices, have a clear scope and sequence, and provide resources for both teachers and students. This differs from the general use of instructional materials, which can refer to any resource a teacher uses in their classroom.��

In the United States, the creation of content standards is left to each state. When companies or organizations create HQIM for purchase, such as a k-12 online education platform, they will align it with the specific state in question. When examining the design of HQIM, it is crucial that the procedures and strategies are evidence-based, which means the materials have been reviewed and vetted through real-world research and application.��

From the start of public education in the US through the early 21st century, HQIM were most often textbooks and student workbooks. With the accelerated implementation of technology in education, current HQIM might include online access for students and teachers, teacher editions for lesson plans, consumables for students, and progress monitoring to track student growth.����

Occasionally, national research findings will impact state decisions regarding HQIM. The most recent example is the Science of Reading (SoR). Although the research behind the SoR is not new, the adoption of the practices and associated materials by states and local districts is a more recent development. The SoR research reports that reading must be taught with intentional elements, rather than practices such as ‘whole word’, ‘balanced literacy’, or ‘workshop models’. The Science of Reading stipulates that instruction should focus on phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension.��

Using the SoR as an example, it is possible to see the shift related to the intentional selection of HQIM. Over the last six years, almost every state has created its own HQIM literacy requirement. Each state’s department of education has crafted its own bylaws or bills requiring school districts to select a state-approved HQIM curriculum for use in early literacy practices.��

The underlying belief is that providing all classroom teachers with the same, extensively reviewed, standards-appropriate materials will increase student success. Government and school leaders hope that, as students progress through the grades, the accumulation of improved practices will have a notable impact on secondary reading and math scores and graduation rates.