To identify how teachers are spending their time outside of teaching in Cy-Fair ISD, the district commissioned market research firm Hanover Research to conduct a survey and focus groups during the 2023-24 school year.

The firm’s recommendations included streamlining processes to reduce teachers’ administrative workloads and increasing the amount of time teachers have to complete their tasks through more planning periods and teacher workdays.

The specifics

The Hanover study found across the board, teachers primarily spend time on documentation, such as to comply with special education requirements and report student behavior incidents.

“That write-up process ... can take about an hour if you factor in writing the write-up, contacting parents, talking to the [assistant principal], sometimes [a] parent conference,” one high school teacher included in the report said regarding discipline reports. “It's almost more cumbersome to do a write-up, and it's easier to manage [behavioral issues] in class.”


Teachers quoted in the report were anonymous.

Instructional planning and support, including planning and preparing for lessons and grading, is another time-consuming task, according to the report.
Additionally, teachers reported the following about time spent outside the classroom in a typical week:
  • 73% of secondary teachers spend five or more hours tutoring
  • 42% of secondary teachers spend five or more hours on before- and after-school duties
  • 73% of elementary teachers spend five or more hours serving in task-oriented groups
  • 59% of elementary teachers spend five or more hours preparing for or attending meetings with parents
Teachers in focus groups also discussed the pressure to attend students’ athletic events, performances and community fundraisers. While they want to attend these events to show their support, they feel they don’t have time. At the same time, they said supervisors expect them to participate and ask about it in performance reviews.

“When a student invites me to something, I try and go ... but a choir concert or a game, that's a good two, three hours out of your evening,” one high school teacher said in the report. "It means so much to your students, but it’s a huge time commitment.”

Why it matters


The Charles Butt Foundation’s 2023 Texas Teacher Poll found 75% of teachers considered leaving the profession in 2023, with teachers citing excessive workloads and insufficient pay as significant factors.

As CFISD faces budgetary constraints, the board approved a 2% pay increase for the 2024-25 school year—down from 3% in 2023-24. Additionally, the board reduced the number of teacher workdays built into the calendar from four to two.

Budget cuts in 2024-25 included over half of campus librarians, including Kimberly Rains, who graduated from CFISD and returned to teach for several years before getting her master’s degree and becoming a librarian.

“I love working with the kids, but it was everything else—it was the testing, and there's no time during the school day. You couldn't even go to the restroom, you know? I [was] bringing hours’ worth of work home,” she said of her time as a teacher.


Teacher turnover in CFISD reached 18.3% in 2022-23, but data was not yet available for 2023-24. This trend mirrors a similar pattern at the state level as turnover rates have increased since the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Several of [my coworkers] are just leaving just to get out of education altogether,” Rains said. “It’s just demanding. You've got student behaviors, you've got no support from parents. ... Teachers are just leaving in droves.”