The most consistent finding in education research is that teachers matter. I often write here about what happens outside the classroom, but ultimately the question that matters for students is whether all that – governance, budget, policy, curriculum adoption decisions – influences how teachers do their job. Today’s post gets into one of the more direct tools available to MCPS for influencing teaching: the structure of teacher “planning” time. What is it, why does it matter, and how did a recent change to the teachers’ union contract change how it works in MCPS?
Today’s guest poster, Regan Kelly, has supported dozens of districts to improve literacy outcomes for students by supporting teachers. Regan started her career as a teacher in Compton, CA and has been a literacy coach, school leader, network leader and consultant. She is an MCPS parent of a 10th and a 7th grader. Thank you, Regan, for taking the time to share your expertise here.
Do you want to improve student outcomes? The most reliable way to do that is to improve teacher practice. Simple, right? Not exactly. How do teachers improve? What support matters most? And who is responsible for making it happen? My experience (and the research!) suggest that anchoring improvement in curriculum and protecting meaningful collaborative time to prepare for instruction are two of the most important ingredients in effective teacher development.
What is planning time?
Planning time has no one definition. In any given day, teachers have blocks of time when they have no students (this might be a free period in middle or high school or a block while kids are in PE or music in elementary). Some of that time is literally free - teachers might grade work, they might email parents, they might make photocopies, they might call their dentist (teachers have few business hours and everyone needs to call the dentist at some point!). Some of that time is structured, usually with a grade-level or department meeting where they meet with other teachers. In these meetings they may be reviewing and internalizing upcoming lessons, anticipating and preparing for student misunderstandings, analyzing student work, rehearsing and getting feedback on the toughest part of the lesson from peers who are doing the same lessons.
Ideally they are guided, supported and led by a grade level/subject area leader, an instructional coach, or a school leader. Someone who can support them in the follow up from the collaboration with observation and feedback on their execution. And all of that collaborative work is a form of what we call “job-embedded” teacher development - a way to help teachers improve their practice tomorrow for their students with the curriculum they use.
Before I go any further, I want to shift our language. I’ll suggest that we call this preparation and not planning. Here’s why:
If I asked you to plan a trip to the beach, you’d be starting from scratch: Which beach? How long? Where should we stay? That’s planning.
If I asked you to prepare for a trip to Ocean City next week, you’d do different things: check the weather, find the beach umbrella, call the dog sitter, pack the car. That’s preparing.
That’s the distinction I want to make. Teachers with a high-quality curriculum are rarely starting from scratch. Their work is preparing to teach a lesson well—not inventing one. And this preparation is hard work and requires deep knowledge and expertise about the content, curriculum and students. MCPS is launching a new math curriculum and you can imagine how critical preparation is for new lessons.
Framing teacher planning time as preparation really shifts the focus to what we need teachers, who are experts, to focus on: making sure the grade level content in the curriculum is accessible to all students. I actually call this intellectual prep because I think this is the hard stuff we need our amazing teachers focused on and working collaboratively to do.
Why does teacher preparation time matter for kids?
To improve student performance, you must improve how teachers teach. If you want teachers to teach their curriculum (the one the Board of Education voted to adopt), you need to improve how teachers teach that curriculum, not just in general. And teachers need to get this support on the job: grounded in their materials, attending to the unique needs of their students, with peers and leaders who know their students and in ways that are applicable the next day. When teachers participate in this sort of job-embedded, curriculum-based professional learning, students’ test scores improved by 9 percent of a standard deviation - about the same improvement you’d get from switching from an average teacher to a top performer.
Teacher planning time can look like an adult issue, but its ultimate purpose is improving the quality and consistency of what students experience every day. The question is not whether teachers deserve planning time—they do. The question is how a school system can organize that time so teachers receive the support they deserve and students receive consistently strong instruction. Research increasingly points toward collaborative, curriculum-based preparation as one of the highest-leverage uses of that time. When planning time is treated as protected instructional infrastructure—not merely a contractual benefit—it becomes one of the most powerful tools available for improving teaching and learning.
What does job-embedded, curriculum-based professional learning actually look like?
Across the country, districts are adopting strong curricula (like MCPS now has in K-8 ELA and math!) and they know that a one-time training over the summer is not enough for sustained improvement. And they know that teachers deserve more support. Many districts and several states (including Maryland!) are using a similar shared theory of action (much simplified here): curriculum + curriculum-based professional learning and support = improvements in teacher practice and student achievement. Preparation that is timely (next Tuesday’s lesson!), collaborative (how did you explain that concept to your class?), grounded in students (what will my students struggle with?) will support teachers to maintain the rigor of the lesson but make it work for their students. In most school systems this sort of planning is built into the schedule and expectations on a weekly basis (so in elementary, for example, each grade level should have at least one weekly collaborative preparation meeting, typically at least 45 minutes, for math and one for reading), it is led by a principal, assistant principal, instructional coach or teacher leader/chair and districts use a common set of tools or protocols to structure the time and maximize impact.
MCPS has the raw materials for this to work! We have strong, externally-vetted curriculum in reading and math K-8. We have reading specialists. staff development specialists and content/department leads in elementary, middle and high schools. We have time built into the day for teacher preparation. But following the research and organizing those raw materials in ways that help teachers improve their practice as professionals takes work.
How do MCPS teachers get support for using new curricula?
Let’s do a little deep dive into elementary literacy. As of fall 2024, each elementary school had a reading specialist who was specifically tasked with supporting and developing teachers in the use of our newly adopted curriculum, Amplify CKLA. And for a year, that is exactly what they did - meeting weekly or more with teachers to prepare lessons, review student work, rehearse, look at data, collaborate. When MCPS’ internal research shop, the Office of Shared Accountability, evaluated that first year, they heard from some staff who needed more support implementing CKLA, and recommended the district provide it. MCPS agreed in their response below.
In the “responsive action plan” section above, MCPS describe how they would “expand and refine professional learning opportunities.” The MCEA (teachers’ union) contract provided seven hours per week of planning time, which was time enough for teachers to collaborate and prepare for lessons and receive this sort of named support (and even have time to spare for other critical tasks - grading, communicating with families, etc.)
Then, a contract change introduced new constraints on how principals could structure collaborative preparation time.
What changed in MCPS about planning time?
In March 2025, MCPS amended the contract with MCEA. The changes had significant implications for teacher preparation time. Teachers still have planning time (and the same total amount!), and schools still have instructional experts—reading specialists, department chairs, and content leads—whose roles include supporting teacher development.The big shift is that the amendment introduced – without a definition – the concept of “directed” planning time. In elementary schools, principals now can only direct teachers’ use of planning time twice per month and cannot use the entire planning block. Before the amendment, there was no such distinction or limit. The shift is smaller for middle and high schools, where the administrator can “direct” four planning periods a month instead of two.
What does this mean in practice? Principals can require collaborative preparation far less frequently than before. How much collaborative preparation time depends on a few things:
How do principals interpret “directed?” In some schools, leaders have interpreted the change conservatively to avoid running afoul of the contract. The result is that collaborative preparation is now far more dependent on local decisions than on a consistent district-wide expectation.
How long is a planning block? It isn’t specified in the contract, and likely varies by school; if it is 45 minutes, that means only 70 minutes/month can be directed, and if it is 60 minutes, then the principal can direct 100 minutes/month.
What other “directed” activities are competing with collaborative planning for those two precious blocks? E.g., mandatory compliance training, administrative matters, required school initiatives, etc.
Why did the contract change? I think the idea was that teachers should have more freedom over their planning time. And that is a noble ideal. The rationale behind the change is understandable. Teachers are professionals. They need time to grade, contact families, prepare materials, reflect on student work, and respond to the realities of their own classrooms. No one wants planning time to become a series of compliance exercises or meetings that don’t improve instruction.
The question is whether, in restructuring how teacher planning blocks can be used, we’ve accidentally made it harder to provide the kind of collaborative support that research suggests supports teachers to implement high-quality instruction – and the kind of development that MCPS agreed (above) teachers need.
What should MCPS, MCEA, and the Board of Education be doing next about helping teachers improve their practice?
My hope is that the BOE and MCPS and the MCEA shift away from thinking about how much planning time exists and how it is directed to whether MCPS has a coherent theory of how teacher development happens and, then, whether the current contract terms support that theory. I’ve posited a theory here that I’ve seen work and is replicated across the country: give teachers strong curriculum and meaningful time to prepare together, and they’re more likely to improve their practice—which is how students learn more.
In the immediate future, there isn’t much to be done. The amended contract goes through June 30, 2027. There will be a chance to negotiate something different next year. In the meantime, principals and school-based subject experts (reading specialists, department chairs) are continuing to get development and guidelines for how to maximize teacher collaborative preparation time to impact student achievement.
If I were on the board, here is what I’d be asking:
What are the three most important ways teacher practice in MCPS needs support? What is MCPS doing to support each of those needs? Who is responsible for overseeing these support efforts? What systems are in place to provide it consistently?
How do we know how the “directed” planning time is being spent in schools? What evidence do we collect at the school level? How would MCPS know if collaborative preparation was happening, and if it was, if it was effective? What indicators would tell us that?
If I sat in on ten grade-level planning meetings next week, how many would be focused on preparing upcoming lessons from our adopted curriculum?
Pop quiz
A district adopts a world-class curriculum. What is the next most important question?
a. What font should we use on the pacing guide?
b. How should we organize the shared drive for most efficient teacher access to shared resources?
c. How will teachers be supported to learn and implement it well?
d. By how many standard deviations will average test scores rise the next year?
Answer key
Correct answer: C. If curriculum alone improved instruction, school improvement would be easy. Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately), teachers are still the most important in-school factor shaping students’ daily experiences. Strong curriculum creates the opportunity; teacher learning and implementation determine whether that opportunity translates into better outcomes for kids.
Extra credit
At your next PTA meeting, principal meet and greet, Board of Education event, or candidate forum, ask one question:
How much protected time do teachers have to improve instruction together, and what does that time actually look like?
Then listen carefully to the answer. If the response focuses only on how many minutes teachers receive, ask a follow-up:
How is that time used to help teachers improve instruction for students?
The goal isn’t more meetings. The goal is helping great teachers get even better.
Exit ticket
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