PLANNING PERIOD LITERACY™ BELONGS IN EVERY SCHOOL.

Planning Period Literacy™ is the knowledge and skills teachers need to protect, structure, and use their planning time strategically. It treats the planning period as a professional practice that can be taught, supported, and strengthened.

Sustainable Teaching Solutions partners with schools and districts to protect the conditions for focused work and deliver professional learning that helps teachers complete more of their work within the school day.

LEARN MORE

HELPING SCHOOLS PROTECT TEACHER TIME THROUGH PLANNING PERIOD LITERACY™.

THE PLANNING PERIOD PROBLEM

Every school depends on work that happens outside direct instruction. Lesson preparation, grading, family communication, documentation, collaboration, and daily problem-solving all require time. The planning period is where much of that work is supposed to happen. Too often, those minutes are divided among meetings, class coverage, interruptions, paperwork, new initiatives, and urgent requests. Teachers are left trying to fit concentrated work into fragmented time. In the 2026 Teacher Planning Period Survey, 59% of 414 educators reported that they rarely or never leave their planning periods feeling caught up. The unfinished work moves into lunch, after school, evenings, and weekends. Schools cannot remove every demand from the day. They can protect the conditions for focused work and give teachers practical structures for using planning time strategically. Planning Period Literacy™ addresses both sides of the problem. Schools protect the time, and teachers learn how to structure and use it. When both are in place, more of the work can be completed within the school day.

WHAT THE NUMBERS SAY

To play, press and hold the enter key. To stop, release the enter key.

WHAT TEACHERS ARE SAYING

"It isn't a free period. There are things we have to get done, and when more tasks are added, there is less time to complete the work that is already required."

THE PLANNING PERIOD LITERACY™ APPROACH

Planning Period Literacy™ treats the planning period as a professional practice that can be taught, supported, and strengthened. The approach brings school conditions and teacher skill together. School leaders create the conditions that protect planning time. Teachers learn practical ways to set priorities, structure focused work, and use the time strategically. Sustainable Teaching Solutions helps schools put both pieces in place through research-informed professional learning and leadership support. This shared approach reduces fragmentation, supports teacher sustainability, and helps more work stay within the school day.

TEACHER’S EDITION

Professional, realistic photo of a Black woman teacher in a classroom setting

Why 83% of Veteran Teachers Have Considered Leaving : and What Keeps the Rest

Don’t misread veteran teacher attrition as a commitment problem. Experienced educators are not walking away because they suddenly dislike teaching or expect an easier career. They are reconsidering the profession because the work has expanded beyond what the school day can reasonably hold. Workload stress now reaches into health, family life, evenings, weekends, and the basic ability to recover. When the job consistently demands more time, more documentation, more communicati

What a Mental Health Day Cannot Fix

Every time a teacher talks about being exhausted, somebody eventually says, “You should take a mental health day.” I understand why people say it. Some days we do need to step away. Rest matters. A quiet day can give us room to breathe, sleep, cry, stare at a wall, or do absolutely nothing without anyone asking us for a pencil. But a mental health day cannot repair a workday that keeps asking teachers to do more than a human day can hold. For most teachers, the exhaustion doe

A Black woman teacher sits calmly in a sunlit classroom, embodying professional clarity and a regulated nervous system.

What's Best for Kids Starts With a Teacher Who Isn't Overwhelmed

You have heard the phrase "what’s best for kids" a thousand times. It is the gold standard of education. It serves as the metric against which every decision, every late night, and every sacrifice is measured. This phrase justifies the extra hours, the skipped lunches, and the heavy weight of a career that asks for your soul. However, there is a fundamental truth often left out of the conversation: you cannot provide what is best for a child if your own nervous system is in a

2 3

ABOUT

Carla Erskin is an educator, author, and certified productivity coach with 15 years of classroom experience. She is the founder of Sustainable Teaching Solutions and the creator of Planning Period Literacy™, a professional practice that helps schools protect planning time and equips teachers with the skills to structure and use it strategically.

Carla’s work is grounded in classroom reality and informed by her 2026 Teacher Planning Period Survey of 414 educators. The findings revealed a clear gap between giving teachers planning time and preparing them to use that time within a school day shaped by meetings, interruptions, documentation, and competing demands.

She introduced Planning Period Literacy™ in an article published in Education Week. Through research-informed professional learning and leadership support, Carla now helps schools and districts build a shared approach to planning time that supports focused work, teacher sustainability, and more manageable workloads.