Welcome to episode 109 of Angela Watson's Truth for Teachers. I'm your host

Angela Watson and I'm here to speak life, encouragement, and truth into the minds and

hearts of educators and get you energized for the week ahead.

Today I'm going to be doing a coaching call with a teacher named Kristen and discuss how to

reduce your work hours and streamline parent communication without looking like a slacker.

Visit truth for teachers.com to get links to recommended resources and to share your thoughts

on the show.

So the episode you're about to hear is a free coaching call that I conducted with a graduate of the 40-hour teacher work week club.

Her name is Kristen and she's a year four teacher in Australia, which is equivalent to fourth grade in the U.S.

You will adore listening to her lovely accent.

I could talk to her all day.

Kristen is in her sixth year of teaching, and she's feeling like she's spending way too much time

communicating with parents and answering emails. And she's also feeling

nervous about what cutting back on the amount of time that she spends on these things, as well as other tasks in general might do to her reputation in the school.

She's one of those teachers who's the last one out of the parking lot,

and a lot of time she's doing it because she feels pressure to stay late and she feels like it looks bad if you leave early.

I talked with Kristen in this coaching call for a good 45 minutes, a little bit longer than that even.

And what I'm going to play here in the podcast for you

is just the second half of that conversation,

where we're focused on email communication,

because I know that's an issue that probably

a lot of you listening are dealing with feeling like you have

...