Ah, summer. Evenings by the lake. Trips to exotic lands, or national parks, or simply to visit family and friends. Baseball. The French Open, Wimbledon, and the U.S. Open. This year, the World Cup. Sleeping in. Idyllic times spent simply enjoying. For teachers and students, it’s all about the chance to relax, refresh, and regroup between one school year and the next. Phineas and Ferb know all about it. One of the greatest things about any school year is that it ends, as I wrote recently. The general nature of each school year is not unlike anything with a seasonal approach: The “in-season” time is filled with intensity and activity, and at times it may seem like things are teetering (perhaps on the brink of something?) and unstable. And yet, despite any adversity or tension found at given times in the previous ten months, the end always arrives. Summer is at hand.

Sure, astronomical summer isn’t officially here until the Summer Solstice later this month, and that’s fine. Frankly, those remaining 3 weeks of astronomical spring actually improve the phenomenon, because it allows everyone a chance to appreciate the days as they continue to lengthen. Stay out later, soak in the sun as it extends to its latest point, setting at nearly 9:00pm. If your life has been consumed by school for the past 10 months, whether as a student or as a teacher, right now, it’s not. Get out there and live. Do all the things for which you don’t have time during the school year. Read something you genuinely want to read, perhaps on a beach, or maybe at the park or even in your backyard. Listen to music. Play music. Play a sport. Just play, and stop worrying so much about what you have to do — assignments, grading, planning. Immerse yourself in things you enjoy. Therein lies the beauty of summer, particularly for teachers who’ve been on-edge for around 250 of the past 280 days (allowing for holidays). After the relative fervor of a given school year, the release of simply existing — no commute, no lessons, no activities, no updating Canvas, no meetings, no e-mails — can be downright cathartic.

Before you say, “Teachers have it easy; I’m at my job every day in the summer and only get 2 weeks of vacation each year,” step back a second and realize that your job is probably not nearly like teaching. Everyone that works 50 weeks a year without a week off for Thanksgiving, two weeks for Christmas and New Year’s, and a week for Spring Break also isn’t having to deal with the pressure of the school year, the deadlines, the children, or the parents. Anyone who goes into teaching does so with an interest in helping children of various ages, but even for someone who “loves kids,” 36 or more calendar weeks of working with them — and dealing their parents — can be exhausting. You have to keep them safe and engaged while trying to impart some knowledge, wisdom, critical thinking skills, and content that you hope will last in their brains beyond the next 72 hours. Tack on test prep, extracurricular activities, and general well-being, and we’re talking a whole different demand on your psyche than the average 9-to-5 job.

And don’t even start with the nonsense of “summers off,” or the even more insulting “3 Reasons for Teaching: June, July, August.” Take August completely off the table, because teachers will already be gearing up for and starting the new school year during that month. Technically, the teachers at your kid’s school are currently unemployed (officially termed off-contract) even though most have received what’s called a “letter of reasonable assurance” that they will be employed again when they are asked to report for the coming school year. “They’re getting paid to sit around all summer.” FALSE. Teacher contracts are based on a daily rate multiplied by the number of workdays, usually the instructional days plus five (for “staff development” prior to the beginning of the year). Daily Rate x Duty Days = Total Salary, which is divided by 12 to determine the monthly paycheck. So the teacher “sitting around” as you read this is receiving deferred payment during the months of June, July, and August. They will report this coming August but will not actually be paid for the time worked in August 2026 until after September 1. So spare me the notion that your tax dollars are paying them for nothing. They’re simply patient enough to accept the payment after it’s remained in the public coffers for an extra month or two. Beyond that, teachers are also expected to seek out and earn “professional development” (PD) time on their own during the summer. Sometimes districts host their own conferences during the summer to allow these requirements to be fulfilled, but the bottom line is that teachers have to seek out their opportunities, at their own expense.

Having said that, I still consider summer to be a wonderful respite for teachers…at least through June and July. Sure, they’ve got to earn their PD time, but they actually get to choose where and how to earn them. It’s not always a matter of heading to a district venue for 2 days of “death by PowerPoint.” When I was a classroom teacher, I used to attend a 2-day conference offered by the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas. Two days heading into downtown Dallas (and learning to appreciate my own short commute to campus), featuring excellent food and knowledgeable speakers while communing with my colleagues from other places. I always enjoyed listening to speakers from the world of economic research talking content, as opposed to educators talking pedagogy or classroom management. Honestly, it hardly felt like work, so I never felt like my summer was interrupted; this was simply part of the summertime release for me. Even during years when I spent an entire week at TCU or UTA attending a Summer AP Institute, I still felt like I was recharging myself personally and professionally. The serenity of summer remained.

It actually wasn’t until I moved into administration that I realized that summer also holds a fair level of insanity for some educators. It turns out, some districts don’t offer much freedom for their teachers when deciding how to earn PD hours. Some districts require teachers to participate in their district-led PD conference. For someone who was used to enjoying my little high-tone events at the Dallas Fed, this realization was jarring. Are we really expecting teachers to spend an additional two days listening to the same central administrators who cannot keep their attention at PD meetings during the school year? “Oh, we’ll have guest speakers.” I suppose that’s true, but the guest speakers are often central administrators from other districts…who also cannot keep their teachers’ attention at PD meetings during the school year. (Many of these people have no clue about the principles I outlined in my post about presentation skills last year.) Sometimes, the guest speakers are independent consultants, but that can be a very mixed bag. For every guest consultant who’s engaging, there are at least three that are either still “finding their voice” or are just not very good. You get what you pay for, especially when it comes to guest speakers on topics like curriculum, teaching strategies, and lesson planning. Good Luck. And yet, some districts still schedule these sessions and require them of their teachers. Insane.

Want to ramp up the insanity even more? Let’s talk about administrators, who get paid a higher annual salary, yes, but often only because their contracts include more days than those of teachers. A teacher may work 180 days (175 instructional + 5 extra). An administrator might be contracted to work 210 days, or maybe even 226 or more. So your typical assistant principal, or someone in central office, is NOT off work right now; they’re on-campus literally as you read this. What are they doing? Excellent question. Often, they’re working on things that weren’t quite finished during the school year itself — cleaning up records, managing files, day-to-day office duties. They may be working on projects related to the physical status of the building that are best handled without students and teachers roaming the halls all day. Many administrators are working on the campus master schedule for the coming year, processing new enrollments, planning for August staff development sessions, and similar activities. Still…are there days when a given school administrator is essentially staring at the ceiling waiting for the day to end? No one likes to admit it openly, but everyone knows it happens. “Well, they should be fired for wasting my tax dollars.” Calm down. It’s the nature of nearly all work that is compensated on clock hours, whether in public school or at a store inside your local mall. Sometimes time simply passes without massive productivity. When you consider that some of these administrators are actually making a lower daily rate than some teachers and only have a higher salary due to the extra days, it shouldn’t surprise or anger you. Also, factor in all the extra duties and sh** these administrators contend with during the school year. Having said that, the requirements of many of these contracts is still insane.

But the supreme insanity of summer is found in a place you probably already expect, if you’ve previously read my blog: Testing. Yes, Virginia, the State of Texas requires student assessment every summer. The good news is that the old Student Success Initiative (SSI) for elementary and junior high/middle school students has now been retired for 5 years. There was a time when students in Grades 5 and 8 would be required to pass all their STAAR tests for automatic promotion to Grades 6 and 9. So they would test in April, again in May if unsuccessful, then again in June if still unsuccessful. The campus would be required to jump through hoops…“provide accelerated instruction” between test administrations. If a student failed for a third time in June, a Grade Placement Committee would be convened (to maintain the illusion of standards), and nearly every time, the student would still be promoted. TEA suspended SSI in Summer 2016 due to problems with unreliable results from the vendor, then discontinued it altogether in 2021. Hooray! Trouble is, the specter of June STAAR still looms thanks to End-Of-Course (EOC).

I’ve railed about EOC twice before. December EOCs are a pain for campuses during what should be a happier time. Spring EOCs are a necessary evil, I suppose, although they beget IGCs. But June EOCs? If you thought administrator summer days are a waste, wait until you consider June EOCs. The theory behind June EOCs actually sounds positive on its face: Offer students an additional opportunity to fulfill EOC graduation requirements (i.e., pass the test at the minimum standard), so they get three chances a year instead of just two. The June test administration is strictly optional; students can opt to wait until December for the next chance. It sounds easy enough, but the reality is that offering the test again in June leads to consumption of additional resources. Campuses have to arrange for rooms to be open and air-conditioned for student testing. Because teachers are off-contract, they have to be hired at an hourly rate to administer the test, which is untimed, so that can add up immensely. Because students are coming to the building, the campus has to arrange transportation for those who need it, as well as meals. Since students who failed a STAAR test probably require remedial instruction, most districts arrange some kind of summer tutorials, which require rooms, and A/C, and staff, and transportation, and meals, as well. In the midst of what should be the serenity of summer, a veritable cottage industry of instruction and testing sprouts during the early weeks of June, siphoning off funds that might’ve been used elsewhere, and culminating in a STAAR EOC administration that will yield minimal gains, if any, for the campus. 

I know all of this first-hand, because I’ve administered a June EOC, I’ve supervised administration of the test, and I’ve analyzed the results from June EOCs at a district and campus level. I’ve served as the District Testing Coordinator in the past and supported each campus as they determine the best method for planning and administering the test for their students and staff. I’ve also worked as a Campus Testing Coordinator where the district insisted on consolidating retesters from several campuses and testing them all in a single building, despite the additional logistical headaches it created. I’ve collaborated with other administrators in planning and administration of testing, trying to respect their time and efforts while knowing they don’t really want to do this, but they’re on-contract and basically required to be there. I’ve spent time working with teachers in attendance at district-mandated training and during the test, as they question their life choices despite knowing they’re getting paid extra to do this. I’ve sent e-mails, placed phone calls, and processed countless students through the test management system du jour to schedule their tests and testing rooms. I’ve compiled and printed more testing-related documents than I care to recall. I’ve even worked with special needs students and their parents, along with specialized staff, to arrange specific testing locations and accommodations for students who qualify. Through all of it, I can tell you, without question, the entire process, especially during the summer is insane. A waste of time and energy.

“It’s certainly not a waste for the students that pass.” Sure, I understand the starfish-on-the-sand philosophy…for a student who actually shows up ready to work and tries hard on the test, going into the next school year without the looming specter of December EOC, or having to miss instruction to take that infernal test, can be its own reward. I get it, and I appreciate it. At the same time, from a wider perspective, I know that the return on total investment in this exercise is desperately low. See, I forgot to mention above that I’ve also admitted students walking up for testing who don’t even know what test(s) they need, let alone have content knowledge related to them, but whose parents essentially forced them to come take the test. I’ve watched a student run to the doors late, having suffered car trouble on the way to the testing campus, only to have the District Testing Coordinator herself tell the student, “Sorry, we don’t allow any late testers.” (That one really disgusted me, because we had open seats the student could’ve taken.) I’ve seen countless students finish English EOC tests designed to last 2-3 hours within 45 minutes because they barely wrote anything for the Essay. Those scores will not be passing, guaranteed. I’ve even seen a student click through the test blindly, randomly picking answers in 10 minutes, then leave, openly stating he’ll just “take it for real” in December. Yet another parent-forced-me-to-be-here situation. Even when I was District Testing Coordinator in a strong, A-rated district with relatively few June EOC retesters, our best campuses typically saw less than 20% of those students succeed in passing a test during the June administration. A waste. Insanity.

Why are we doing this? For that matter, why do some districts say “we’re going to rewrite curriculum / district assessments / scope and sequence / pacing guides / subject-area projects,” etc. with teaching staff during the summer? The fact is, you’ll NEVER get anyone to do their best work in the summer, whether from students or teachers, even if you’re offering “extra duty pay.” I said it earlier in the post: The school year is intense. It’s exhausting enough that the relative repose for teachers and students alike is necessary. Treating June and July as simply unused, unproductive months that beg for further activity is foolhardy. Trying to cram instruction and more testing into them is futile. Expecting anything more than the basic foundations of the coming school year during this time is unwise and irrational. Stop the Insanity. Embrace the Serenity. Let’s run into each other at the ballgame, the pool, the museum, or the park instead.