Teaching · For Teachers · Schedules

Four minutes a
day is twelve
hours a year.

List what interrupts teaching, how long it takes and how often. The calculator turns the small daily losses into hours and school days over a year and ranks the causes, so a leadership team knows where to start.

Add up the timeWhat you get
$12one-time · every device you sign in on
Buy · $12

Included with Caveat Classroom and Whole-school licenses. Or get it in the For Teachers toolkit, $79 for 72 items.

The lost instructional time calculator

The worked example is a made-up middle school with six familiar interruptions. Nothing you type leaves this browser.

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What you get

Teaching · For Teachers$12 · included with Classroom and Whole-school licenses

What you finish with
Minutes, hours and instructional days lost in a year, the share of the year’s instruction, and every cause ranked. It prints as a summary and downloads as a spreadsheet.
Who it is for
Principals, school leadership teams, teacher teams and instructional leaders looking at the schedule.
Format
Browser calculator for a phone, tablet or computer, by touch or keyboard. Up to 30 interruptions. Prints a summary; downloads a spreadsheet (.csv); export and import a file.
Access
$12 one-time, yours on every device you sign in on; the tool opens once you are signed in with it. Included with Caveat Classroom and Whole-school licenses. Also in the For Teachers toolkit ($79) and the Teaching Suite pass ($199), and 1 more bundle. Everything you type stays in this browser; nothing is sent to Caveat.
Where it lives
The For Teachers space in Caveat Teaching.
Support
Questions, a correction or a request: team@caveatacademic.com.

How to use it

  1. Type the instructional minutes in a normal day and the school days in a year.
  2. Add each interruption with minutes each time, how many times and how often.
  3. Read the hours and days lost and which cause costs the most.
  4. Time a few real days to firm up the estimates.
  5. Print the summary or download the spreadsheet for the team.

Add up the time

How the time is added up

Minutes, times, frequency, a year.

One line of the worked exampleEach time4 minannouncements run overHow often× 180every school dayIn a year720 min= 12 hoursIn school days2.0720 ÷ 360 minutesOne line of the worked exampleEach time4 minannouncements run overHow often× 180every school dayIn a year720 min= 12 hoursIn school days2.0720 ÷ 360 minutes
Four minutes of announcements running over every day become 12 hours, or 2.0 instructional days, in a 180-day year. All six causes in the example add up to 7.3 days.

The arithmetic

Each line is minutes lost each time, times how many times, times how often that happens in a year: every school day, every week (school days ÷ 5), every month (school days ÷ 20) or once a year. The lines are added, then divided by 60 for hours and by the instructional minutes in a day for school days.

Using the result

Time studies of classrooms have long found that the time allocated to instruction and the time actually spent on it differ, and that small routine losses account for much of the gap. Daily items multiply by the whole year, so they usually outweigh the dramatic ones. Time a sample of real days before deciding what to change.

Sources

  1. National Center for Education Statistics. State Education Practices, Table 5.14: instructional days and hours required by state (nces.ed.gov).
  2. National Center on Time and Learning. Time and Learning in Schools (2015 and later reports): allocated and engaged time.
  3. Institute of Education Sciences, Regional Educational Laboratory program. Reports on instructional time and extended learning time (ies.ed.gov/ncee/rel).
  4. Education Commission of the States. 50-State Comparison: Instructional Time Policies (ecs.org).

The worked example is made up. The totals are only as good as the minutes and counts typed. Your figures stay in this browser. Support: team@caveatacademic.com.