(This is being reprinted as I work on a book, but this advice could be helpful to many teachers. Readers, please pass this post along to fellow teachers who may benefit — teachers in struggling districts with high turnover rates.)

My eldest girl is busy planning her lessons for next year. I am not. I would plan my lessons but every single year of my last four years, I have found myself teaching different grades and/or subjects. I suspect I will teach 8th grade language arts and social studies, but I can’t be sure.

This is a subtle cost to being part of a poor district that sees constant personnel changes. I won’t do a lot of work before fall because for all I know I’ll end up teaching 7th grade science and math instead of the English and social studies I taught this year. Two of four of last year’s bilingual teachers will be gone next year. (At four years, I am an old timer.) Who knows whose role I will fill next year? For all I know, I will be a resource teacher without a classroom.

P.S. Actually three of the four bilingual teachers were gone.

P.S.S. The following year, I left the district. The year after that I came back. At that point, nobody familiar was working in the bilingual department. They had all become strangers.

Eduhonesty: Be careful! I have known people to plan and prepare new materials all summer only to find out in August they have been transferred to another school and grade within their district. If you work in a district with high turnover, I recommend laying out your framework and timing, but after that let it go. Once you know your plan, stop. Daily materials can wait. Go swimming. Make ice cream sundaes. Play.

Too much can change between June and August.