| Estimated reading time: 3 minutes. 577 words | Target Audience: Teachers and coaches |
By May, many teachers are surviving on countdowns, iced coffees, and the promise of summer break. The energy is different. Students are restless. Teachers are tired. Everyone can feel summer getting closer.
Lately, I have been wondering whether May might also be one of the best times to think about next year—not because teachers need to build a perfect plan before leaving for summer, but because some of the clearest planning happens while students are still in the room.
In August, we are often asked to begin the year with a vision for routines, organization, and community before students even arrive. We map out procedures, organize materials, and imagine how we want students to move through the room and through the day.
The thing is, the most useful ideas for next year often show up now, in the middle of real classroom life.
I do not write my grocery list right before heading to the store. I build it gradually while standing in the kitchen, opening cabinets, noticing what is missing, and realizing what would make things run more smoothly.
The list comes from living in the space, and classrooms reveal themselves in the same way.
The routines that need strengthening, the moments when students lose momentum, and the systems that quietly support independence are things we notice as the year unfolds, not after it ends.
Starting Your Grocery List
This year, instead of building a complete strategic plan for August, I want to encourage teachers to start a grocery list.
Not a formal reflection document, but simply a running note titled “Next Year.” Then, pay attention to repeated moments:
Where might the environment support more student independence?
What parts of workshop consistently create confusion, interruptions, or bottlenecks?
What is working so well now that you wish it had been in place since September?
The answers to those questions often become the first items on the list.
Here are some examples that come to mind:
- Stronger writing partnerships that support better conversation and feedback
- Mentor-text studies introduced early enough to become part of the classroom culture
- Clearer routines for how students gather materials and transition into workshop quickly
- Anchor charts that students can reference independently during drafting and revision
- More opportunities for genre flexibility and experimentation in writing
- Systems that give students real audiences throughout the year
- Self-assessment practices woven consistently into each unit
- Better systems for storing notebooks, drafts, and unfinished pieces of writing
- Visual reminders that help students sustain independent writing work
- Better organization for conferring notes and small-group instruction
Often, the small frustrations and successes of May become the clearest starting points for August.
Taking Stock
Teachers do not need to leave the school year with a perfect plan for August.
They just need to leave themselves useful clues.
Those notes may shape summer planning, professional learning, or coaching conversations. They may help teachers decide which professional book to spend time with over the summer or which colleague in the building might offer insight or mentorship on a particular area. For some teachers, those ideas may sit quietly until August, when it is finally time to begin setting up the room again. Either way, the thinking has already started.
Often, the small frustrations and successes of May become the clearest starting points for August. Those plans for next year rarely come from starting from scratch. They come from paying attention while we are still in the room.
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