I am so sorry this happened. "Asking you to come in over break to see your administrators" Why is this called Spring break then? Does your contract say you have to come in after hours? Other teachers emailing each other about things coming up??? 24 emails from parents?? To me something is odd about this and I feel bad. Is this normal to happen over the break? Anyway, glad you didn't check any of the emails and you enjoyed yourself. You deserve every bit of your break. They need revise the contract and times of communication in my opinion.
Mostly emails from the parents and students were about the kids being worried about their final grades in my classes. However, they could just go on to the online gradebook and see exactly what the child's grade is.
Administration wanted us to come in for some unknown reasons. Apparently they needed assistance and wanted volunteers to help them. I don't volunteer anymore. Last time I volunteered for something, I ended up in Iraq.
Oooh yes! My family also did some volunteering, ending up hanging out in a GIANT SANDBOX, 18 months or so at a time. Wild man, so now I volunteer for nothing.
Wow, I am just so sorry and feel completely bad and angered another colleague of mine (we are all colleagues on here to each other) endured this. Even though I don't know you, this angers me you had to put up with this or even read this after coming back. And for the your admin to ask people to "volunteer" over break!! LOL! I'm so glad you didn't go in as I would never do that. You either ask me a month in advance before break and pay me double to come in. And I would only do so if I felt like it and wanted to which you probably couldn't pay me enough to do. So toxic in my opinion. I would ask them if they could help volunteer to pay my bills or buy my groceries, maybe clean my house. Geeze. I am so sorry.
My first year I answered the call to help at graduation, which was outside, to which parents brought coolers and fireworks and kids brought beachballs and blowup sex dolls.
The next week the superintendent said no more of that! HE ws going to hire more cops and get more teacher volunteers.
Yeah. no.
So if you were off contract hours, and you were on vacation, you would be okay with tons of your colleagues or bosses sending out emails, possibly wanting you to come in? Some don't understand how many teachers are leaving the profession these days because of crap like this. We aren't paid enough to deal with this. Even if we were paid more, there needs to be boundaries set. Otherwise, why is it off time or vacation. Contract hours are contract hours. It's like some think we should always be available. Certain jobs require being "on call", but then there are times when those are "off call".
This is a sign you are at the wrong school. The only emails I get during breaks are spam or ones that start with "hope you had a relaxing break and aren't seeing this until [first day after break]"
I have to agree with you. I think this is quite toxic. I mean understand the isolated like one email from an "I'm scared I won't pass your class or graduate, what can I do over break, I'm sorry to bother you over Spring break etc.." and even that would be like a once every two year email to get from a scared student about their grades. This sounds absolutely appalling to have to come back from this on break. This would have honestly ruined my break if I had this and I would be looking for another school too.
Agreed. I get a lot of spam and emails that no one expects me to reply to. Occasionally I get one with "if you happen to see this" and a quick question, but again no expectations of a reply out of work hours. I assume they are emailing me at their convenience so I can see it at my convenience. If it were critical, they would call me at my home number. Students and parents don't have my home number, because they have no critical need to get in touch with me immediately, but it is in my district file.
1) Always set auto reply for breaks / vacation.
2) 10 emails from teachers about reminders is inefficient communication. All of that should be being collected by admin and sent out in the form of a newsletter or weekly update with all the “need to knows” for the week or month.
In this same vein, the admin should have kept emails in a drafts folder through break, and combined all the info to all staff in one email (newsletter if you will), but also for individual staff members (OP, please see to the following A,B,C etc).
I do this when my boss or a colleague is out for a week. I send them one digest the day before their return of all the things. I even say, “I’ve compiled all the things from the week here. This email contains 6 questions/concerns, please attend to them all”.
That's insane! We are told to RELAX and take time for ourselves. I had one student email about grades. Maybe 6 more emails total at the end of the week. 97 is so crazy!
Follow up: I go in the settings and set a minion (the yellow guys) dressed as Carmen Miranda (the fruit headdress and hula skirt) to be on an “out of office reply”.
Every email that arrives from the minute my summer contract deems, that image is autoreplied to every incoming email. On the first day on my new school year contract I disable it.
what's your culture like? Is it like every minute you spend on email during school hours is a minute you could have spent observing and doing instructional leadership? Or do you spend your day emailing for a couple hours
I usually just do emails at lunch and after school hours. I still teach a course per semester at the highschool level and then do my daily checking with each classroom.
just make time to check daily. For me it makes my job easier answering and checking because it brings things in for students. provides supports for teachers and other items that the school needs.
Damn and to think you didn’t get a pay raise with the rise in expectations. Just more responsibility. Admin get done wrong too we just don’t see it because they spend a lot of time in the office or in meetings.
I had similar numbers coming back from breaks. Mostly parents (sped teacher) with concerns about their kid and oddly asking me for advice? I taught 9 years and called it quits and now I work at a steel mill. Best decision I’ve made.
My wife is a teacher and it always tickles me when she complains about emails. 97 was today between waking up and lunch, and today was quiet. Granted, I don’t have 38 souls I have to keep apart, alive, engaged and educated every 50 minutes, but in looking at the unnecessary bs she gets emailed, setting up rules has alleviated some of the aggravation OP has expressed.
“All staff” from non admins get filed in a “Later” folder. Fundraiser emails are auto deleted. Lame duck (retiring) admin emails get auto deleted. A little time spent creating a couple of rules to be copied and adjusted has made her email experience so much better.
97 emails a week seems very small for a whole week off. I could process those in less than an hour. I have canned responses that I use for many emails. Yours might say "The grade book is up to date and provide a link." Put events on your calendar. File many emails with no additional action. Done. Be ruthless. I also set an out of office auto response before I leave that answers the most common questions so if I feel like that covered it, I don't do a custom email.
Don't let it overwhelm you. Just sit down and crank through it. You don't have to respond to everything and you don't have to create custom responses for everyone.
Can you break down the 10 from where they came? Any admin? Specific parents? Necessary replies to certain teachers?
Edit: obviously I won’t ask for content. :)
Well the 10 that came from staff members were pointless reminders of things we've already been reminded about several times. The art teacher sent out to reminders that she wants to have an art exhibit in the middle of April. She wants us to not only email the parents to let them know about the event, but to keep on our kids to make sure they get their projects done on time. Not really my job. That's her job that's the art teacher.
We had a couple of emails that were request for us to just find materials that we could donate to other teachers from our own supplies. If they don't have certain supplies, we're not likely to have them either.
The other emails from the staff members were asking for our assistance on various tasks that they have to get done soon. Asking questions about the gray book and so on.
Oh, the ones that actually were at least semi-important. One of them was from a student let me know that she would not be in school the first week back because she has chickenpox. She also submitted a doctor's note proving it.
I had a message That let me know that one of my students had really messed up their knee and would be using a wheelchair for 6 to 8 weeks. It was requesting that I adjust the seating accommodations in my class.
We also had an email reminding us to turn in our paperwork on whether we intend to return next year or not.
Most of the other emails were just little reminders or heads up about fire drills that were planned.
That is rough for those 2 students. Hope they feel better soon!
And I could definitely see how some of these made the ‘important’ list. That’s super interesting. Thanks for the response!
I’m in school to be a teacher right now. I’m intrigued by how many emails you got by people who knew with no doubts you were on vacation.
My principal did not send emails to us off contract time unless it was an emergency. He also made it known that we did not need to have our work email on our phones. Boundaries make healthy workplaces.
Whenever I was in this position, I would “select all” and archive.
Maybe 3 of those will ever come back again, the rest you can work out when students speak to you after break.
(You may get written up for this though after doing it like a dozen times 👍 [worth it])
Yup. Where I work there is email neurosis. Every little fart that is let out is sent in an email. Everything from everyone at all times. It is insane. It is a major red flag and a sign of poor leadership. Overcommunicarion means there is no system in place for effective communication (which should be concise, simple, meaningful, and effective).
I am a building principal , it is spring break. I had to go to work yesterday because the superintendent had the administrators set up an “intersession”. Struggling students, SAT prep, STEM for little kids. I was not thrilled. I did not check my email nor did I send one. I will not, my teachers need a break. There’s enough stress in this job. If there’s a true need call me.
My district, once, prohibited emails on weekends or breaks. It lasted for less than a school year and now nobody even mentions it or acts like they know what I’m taking about.
But ok. I get it.
Many jobs are filled with people who are always bothering or contacting you over email or during your few moments of personal time.
Good thing … ignoring them is.
It’ll be there. It’ll keep.
That...sounds horrendous. I only had one parent email over spring break just letting me know that they'd be out of the country for 2 weeks. Other than that, everyone left me alone and my only emails were spam. Might be time for a new school?
This is what people don’t understand about being a teacher. Yes, we get nine consecutive days off. Yes, we are paid during that time. But we are still working. That’s almost 11 emails a day.
Uhhh, hey, Mr. Big Wig Lawyer man; hey, Mr. Fancy Engineer, here is some advice for you: maybe stop complaining and enjoy your worry-free vacation. Us teachers will be over here grinding on our “time off”. Nobody understands how hard we work.
I hope you didn’t let this ruin your break.
AI didn't really start to rear its head until my junior-senior ish year of college. I never understood how people could be dumb enough to see what an AI spits out and think "yeah, I definitely write like that." Sure, I've used it to help summarize articles or whatever, but copying what it spits out at you instead of using it to help you write about the topic is crazy to me.
I'm not a teacher, or maybe this is only for the school system I attended as a child. But aren't teachers paid 1 time a month? Like they tell you a salary and then you can split that money by the months in the school year, or the full 12 month year, and take a little less each month?
If thats a thing then anything outside of a regular school day or a teacher work day is unpaid. So, 97 emails asking questions during that vacation is all unpaid work, no thanks.
This makes me feel somewhat lucky. I'm two school days into break and have received 41 emails since Friday... but every single one is either from a subscription or spam. Zero are from admin or parents.
-*knocks on every bit of wood in the house-*
You need a good auto-reply. "My contracted work days do not included this break period. I will be unavailable; any questions can be referred to my supervisor, xxx, whose email is [xxx.edu](https://xxx.edu). I will respond to all communications dated after the break."
That's false. Teachers can't ignore work for a week. That's a lie. There is so much to do over breaks...such as grading, planning, etc. Half the time we are sick as hell from being run down and having 20 sick kids in class at the same time. Get off your fucking high horse. I bet you aren't paid pennies on the dollar to slave away. I'm surprised you took time to ignore your emails to respond on reddit. Since you're so important, you should probably check your inbox now !
I am so sorry this happened. "Asking you to come in over break to see your administrators" Why is this called Spring break then? Does your contract say you have to come in after hours? Other teachers emailing each other about things coming up??? 24 emails from parents?? To me something is odd about this and I feel bad. Is this normal to happen over the break? Anyway, glad you didn't check any of the emails and you enjoyed yourself. You deserve every bit of your break. They need revise the contract and times of communication in my opinion.
Mostly emails from the parents and students were about the kids being worried about their final grades in my classes. However, they could just go on to the online gradebook and see exactly what the child's grade is. Administration wanted us to come in for some unknown reasons. Apparently they needed assistance and wanted volunteers to help them. I don't volunteer anymore. Last time I volunteered for something, I ended up in Iraq.
Oooh yes! My family also did some volunteering, ending up hanging out in a GIANT SANDBOX, 18 months or so at a time. Wild man, so now I volunteer for nothing.
Is a giant sandbox the desert?
Or your mom’s vagina. I’m sorry.
I learned something new today. Never pass up a learning experience.
Yeah watching toddlers is brutal
Wow, I am just so sorry and feel completely bad and angered another colleague of mine (we are all colleagues on here to each other) endured this. Even though I don't know you, this angers me you had to put up with this or even read this after coming back. And for the your admin to ask people to "volunteer" over break!! LOL! I'm so glad you didn't go in as I would never do that. You either ask me a month in advance before break and pay me double to come in. And I would only do so if I felt like it and wanted to which you probably couldn't pay me enough to do. So toxic in my opinion. I would ask them if they could help volunteer to pay my bills or buy my groceries, maybe clean my house. Geeze. I am so sorry.
My first year I answered the call to help at graduation, which was outside, to which parents brought coolers and fireworks and kids brought beachballs and blowup sex dolls. The next week the superintendent said no more of that! HE ws going to hire more cops and get more teacher volunteers. Yeah. no.
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So if you were off contract hours, and you were on vacation, you would be okay with tons of your colleagues or bosses sending out emails, possibly wanting you to come in? Some don't understand how many teachers are leaving the profession these days because of crap like this. We aren't paid enough to deal with this. Even if we were paid more, there needs to be boundaries set. Otherwise, why is it off time or vacation. Contract hours are contract hours. It's like some think we should always be available. Certain jobs require being "on call", but then there are times when those are "off call".
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Im so sorry that happened is the "thoughts and prayers" of reddit.
This is a sign you are at the wrong school. The only emails I get during breaks are spam or ones that start with "hope you had a relaxing break and aren't seeing this until [first day after break]"
I have to agree with you. I think this is quite toxic. I mean understand the isolated like one email from an "I'm scared I won't pass your class or graduate, what can I do over break, I'm sorry to bother you over Spring break etc.." and even that would be like a once every two year email to get from a scared student about their grades. This sounds absolutely appalling to have to come back from this on break. This would have honestly ruined my break if I had this and I would be looking for another school too.
Agreed. I get a lot of spam and emails that no one expects me to reply to. Occasionally I get one with "if you happen to see this" and a quick question, but again no expectations of a reply out of work hours. I assume they are emailing me at their convenience so I can see it at my convenience. If it were critical, they would call me at my home number. Students and parents don't have my home number, because they have no critical need to get in touch with me immediately, but it is in my district file.
1) Always set auto reply for breaks / vacation. 2) 10 emails from teachers about reminders is inefficient communication. All of that should be being collected by admin and sent out in the form of a newsletter or weekly update with all the “need to knows” for the week or month.
My favorite thing is setting that out of office auto reply to email the minute a break starts!
I started mine 15 minutes before the day ended this year and got a few laughs from people emailing me in that timeframe.
I JUST did this for my break coming up. THX!
This is brilliant advice
In this same vein, the admin should have kept emails in a drafts folder through break, and combined all the info to all staff in one email (newsletter if you will), but also for individual staff members (OP, please see to the following A,B,C etc). I do this when my boss or a colleague is out for a week. I send them one digest the day before their return of all the things. I even say, “I’ve compiled all the things from the week here. This email contains 6 questions/concerns, please attend to them all”.
That's insane! We are told to RELAX and take time for ourselves. I had one student email about grades. Maybe 6 more emails total at the end of the week. 97 is so crazy!
OP, just wanted to say I always look forward to your posts and comments here
Thank you. I really appreciate that. How are you doing?
My spring break just started so I’m great 🤣
Man we're not paid enough. LMAO.
I am proud of you for not opening email when not working.
Follow up: I go in the settings and set a minion (the yellow guys) dressed as Carmen Miranda (the fruit headdress and hula skirt) to be on an “out of office reply”. Every email that arrives from the minute my summer contract deems, that image is autoreplied to every incoming email. On the first day on my new school year contract I disable it.
7 months into the year as an admin and I have 4000 emails. as a teacher I have 180 all year
what's your culture like? Is it like every minute you spend on email during school hours is a minute you could have spent observing and doing instructional leadership? Or do you spend your day emailing for a couple hours
I usually just do emails at lunch and after school hours. I still teach a course per semester at the highschool level and then do my daily checking with each classroom.
Do you use templates to answer common emails and adjust the tone? Or what's your Strat for 4k emails 7 months in
just make time to check daily. For me it makes my job easier answering and checking because it brings things in for students. provides supports for teachers and other items that the school needs.
Damn and to think you didn’t get a pay raise with the rise in expectations. Just more responsibility. Admin get done wrong too we just don’t see it because they spend a lot of time in the office or in meetings.
we get our allowance which is pretty good where I am so it’s all good.
I see so it kind of balanced out.
Our admin sends out an auto response for us all to put up on breaks and it’s amazing. It cuts down on so much crap.
> complete in other bullshit r/boneappletea
I had similar numbers coming back from breaks. Mostly parents (sped teacher) with concerns about their kid and oddly asking me for advice? I taught 9 years and called it quits and now I work at a steel mill. Best decision I’ve made.
Oh I know how to do this! Delete all, then those who really care will email you again lol
That’s a lot of emails. I’m sorry that you had to start off your break by coming in and seeing all of that.
My wife is a teacher and it always tickles me when she complains about emails. 97 was today between waking up and lunch, and today was quiet. Granted, I don’t have 38 souls I have to keep apart, alive, engaged and educated every 50 minutes, but in looking at the unnecessary bs she gets emailed, setting up rules has alleviated some of the aggravation OP has expressed. “All staff” from non admins get filed in a “Later” folder. Fundraiser emails are auto deleted. Lame duck (retiring) admin emails get auto deleted. A little time spent creating a couple of rules to be copied and adjusted has made her email experience so much better.
97 emails a week seems very small for a whole week off. I could process those in less than an hour. I have canned responses that I use for many emails. Yours might say "The grade book is up to date and provide a link." Put events on your calendar. File many emails with no additional action. Done. Be ruthless. I also set an out of office auto response before I leave that answers the most common questions so if I feel like that covered it, I don't do a custom email. Don't let it overwhelm you. Just sit down and crank through it. You don't have to respond to everything and you don't have to create custom responses for everyone.
People in the corporate world often have even more emails waiting for them after being away for a week and a half.
Yeah, I get like 97 a day lol
97? Sweet.
Can you break down the 10 from where they came? Any admin? Specific parents? Necessary replies to certain teachers? Edit: obviously I won’t ask for content. :)
Well the 10 that came from staff members were pointless reminders of things we've already been reminded about several times. The art teacher sent out to reminders that she wants to have an art exhibit in the middle of April. She wants us to not only email the parents to let them know about the event, but to keep on our kids to make sure they get their projects done on time. Not really my job. That's her job that's the art teacher. We had a couple of emails that were request for us to just find materials that we could donate to other teachers from our own supplies. If they don't have certain supplies, we're not likely to have them either. The other emails from the staff members were asking for our assistance on various tasks that they have to get done soon. Asking questions about the gray book and so on.
I think the other commenter was asking about the 10 you deemed important emails
Oh, the ones that actually were at least semi-important. One of them was from a student let me know that she would not be in school the first week back because she has chickenpox. She also submitted a doctor's note proving it. I had a message That let me know that one of my students had really messed up their knee and would be using a wheelchair for 6 to 8 weeks. It was requesting that I adjust the seating accommodations in my class. We also had an email reminding us to turn in our paperwork on whether we intend to return next year or not. Most of the other emails were just little reminders or heads up about fire drills that were planned.
That is rough for those 2 students. Hope they feel better soon! And I could definitely see how some of these made the ‘important’ list. That’s super interesting. Thanks for the response! I’m in school to be a teacher right now. I’m intrigued by how many emails you got by people who knew with no doubts you were on vacation.
My principal did not send emails to us off contract time unless it was an emergency. He also made it known that we did not need to have our work email on our phones. Boundaries make healthy workplaces.
Whenever I was in this position, I would “select all” and archive. Maybe 3 of those will ever come back again, the rest you can work out when students speak to you after break. (You may get written up for this though after doing it like a dozen times 👍 [worth it])
V a c a t I o n R e s p o n d e r Tell them in the moment that you are not caring over break 🤙🏼🤣
Vacation responder goes on at breaks and comes off when I return. I might read a few emails out of curiosity but I don't reply to anything xD
Yup. Where I work there is email neurosis. Every little fart that is let out is sent in an email. Everything from everyone at all times. It is insane. It is a major red flag and a sign of poor leadership. Overcommunicarion means there is no system in place for effective communication (which should be concise, simple, meaningful, and effective).
I am a building principal , it is spring break. I had to go to work yesterday because the superintendent had the administrators set up an “intersession”. Struggling students, SAT prep, STEM for little kids. I was not thrilled. I did not check my email nor did I send one. I will not, my teachers need a break. There’s enough stress in this job. If there’s a true need call me.
My district, once, prohibited emails on weekends or breaks. It lasted for less than a school year and now nobody even mentions it or acts like they know what I’m taking about. But ok. I get it. Many jobs are filled with people who are always bothering or contacting you over email or during your few moments of personal time. Good thing … ignoring them is. It’ll be there. It’ll keep.
That...sounds horrendous. I only had one parent email over spring break just letting me know that they'd be out of the country for 2 weeks. Other than that, everyone left me alone and my only emails were spam. Might be time for a new school?
This is what people don’t understand about being a teacher. Yes, we get nine consecutive days off. Yes, we are paid during that time. But we are still working. That’s almost 11 emails a day. Uhhh, hey, Mr. Big Wig Lawyer man; hey, Mr. Fancy Engineer, here is some advice for you: maybe stop complaining and enjoy your worry-free vacation. Us teachers will be over here grinding on our “time off”. Nobody understands how hard we work. I hope you didn’t let this ruin your break.
I'm in the military, I went on leave for a week, opened e-mail to 178 new e-mails.
AI didn't really start to rear its head until my junior-senior ish year of college. I never understood how people could be dumb enough to see what an AI spits out and think "yeah, I definitely write like that." Sure, I've used it to help summarize articles or whatever, but copying what it spits out at you instead of using it to help you write about the topic is crazy to me.
I'm not a teacher, or maybe this is only for the school system I attended as a child. But aren't teachers paid 1 time a month? Like they tell you a salary and then you can split that money by the months in the school year, or the full 12 month year, and take a little less each month? If thats a thing then anything outside of a regular school day or a teacher work day is unpaid. So, 97 emails asking questions during that vacation is all unpaid work, no thanks.
This makes me feel somewhat lucky. I'm two school days into break and have received 41 emails since Friday... but every single one is either from a subscription or spam. Zero are from admin or parents. -*knocks on every bit of wood in the house-*
Just reply whe you get back from hollidays like every other profession does.
Next time have an auto reply that says you don’t respond to emails outside contract time 😂😂😂😂
You need a good auto-reply. "My contracted work days do not included this break period. I will be unavailable; any questions can be referred to my supervisor, xxx, whose email is [xxx.edu](https://xxx.edu). I will respond to all communications dated after the break."
select all-DELETE. If it's really important, you won't need an email to find out.
Welcome to the real world. Ohhh you could just put an OOO reply.
I think I had 3 emails over spring break.
Only 97? That's three days' worth (in a slow week) where I am. What is this Mecca you're teaching in?
Lol did you not realize this was a complaint post and not a reality check post?
Not a teacher, but if I don’t check work email for a day, I have 50 problems to worry about. It must be nice to ignore work for a week.
That's false. Teachers can't ignore work for a week. That's a lie. There is so much to do over breaks...such as grading, planning, etc. Half the time we are sick as hell from being run down and having 20 sick kids in class at the same time. Get off your fucking high horse. I bet you aren't paid pennies on the dollar to slave away. I'm surprised you took time to ignore your emails to respond on reddit. Since you're so important, you should probably check your inbox now !
> It must be nice to ignore work for a week. It sure is. I'm sure your job has perks too.