In the weeks since I’ve first posted about teacher sabbaticals there has been response from both my fellow bloggers at Equality 101 (one post from Adam Miller and one post from Cathy Gilbert) as well as comments from readers of this blog.

We talk a lot about sustainability in schools—everything from recycling paper in our classrooms to serving organic food at lunch—but we also need to talk about sustaining teachers for the creation of healthy schools. Here are two ways in which I see sabbaticals as a form of self-care, student-care, and school-care.

• First, teachers should use sabbaticals as a form of self-care to refresh and to conduct research
• Second, schools should use sabbaticals as a retention tool to reward teachers and to keep them committed to the profession over the long haul Continue reading →

The following post can also be found at Equality 101.

In an effort to continue the conversation about teacher sabbaticals, I have gathered some resources for further thinking by readers. I invite readers to peruse these sources so that we can expand and enrich our understanding of how sabbaticals can be used as professional development that sustains self-care, student-care, and school-care. Please also feel free to use these sources as a jumping off point to respond to the questions I posed last week:

• How are sabbaticals implemented at your school? Are they paid or unpaid?
• How many years must a teacher serve at your school in order for a sabbatical to be taken?
• What have teachers done at your school during their sabbatical and how has that contributed to their classroom practice, curriculum, and or larger school program? Continue reading →