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What is Educator for a Day?

Imagine members of your local community stepping into the shoes of our hard-working educators for a day. The Educator for a Day program provides a one-of-a-kind, behind the scenes look at the dedication, complexity, and passion that goes into ensuring our students succeed in school, and in life. The program invites community members to perform duties such as teaching class, performing lunch and corridor duty, supervising recess, serving meals, and helping office staff with administrative tasks.

Use this online toolkit to host an unforgettable Educator for a Day event in your school or district. It has everything you need to plan, promote, and launch the program successfully!

What will it accomplish?

Educator for a Day will:

• Enhance communication among educators and community leaders.
• Promote the general public’s understanding of the entire educational process, and what happens daily inside of our nation’s schools.
• Demonstrate to public officials, decisionmakers, and other community leaders, the successes and problems schools experience in reaching students of various ability and skill levels.
• Allow persons "outside" the school situation to better understand the realities of a full school day, with constant student interaction. That is why it is important that all Educators for a Day be invited for an entire day's experience.
• Underscore the need for adequate staffing, materials, and facilities for our schools in an era of budget cuts and generally declining resources.
• Help to increase community awareness, through the media, of the needs of today's students and of the challenges school employees face.

Organizing the Program

Once you decide to conduct an Educator for a Day program, the first step should be to form a committee, with a chairperson, to develop a specific plan for your program. That proposal should then be reviewed by your local leadership.

Next, arrange to meet with your superintendent or other administrative representative to develop a final plan suitable to everyone. (See sample letter at the end of this page.) Once your committee has that proposal in hand, they can begin to launch the project.

Specific objectives should include the following:

• Developing a time frame for the project to help keep you on schedule.
• Deciding how many Educators for a Day you need to invite to make the program a success.
• Deciding how many "cooperating educators" you will need to accommodate the guests.
• Setting guidelines for guests and cooperating educators and communicating them to both.
• Letting all school principals know about the program.
• Establishing the media/public relations side of program and making sure that duties are specifically assigned.
• Arranging for adequate evaluation/follow-up for the program, including an end of the school day reception, certificates of appreciation, thank you letters, and follow-up press releases.

Who should be invited?

Some examples of the people you might wish to invite are school committee members, legislators, local officials, community employees (i.e., police officers and firefighters), business people, senior citizens, celebrities who live in town, and media representatives.

In addition, you may want to consider inviting PTA leaders, and generally any other well-known or visible community people. Some general guidelines include the following:

• Seek recognizable names in the community.
• Seek people who can make an entire day's commitment.
• Seek people who are willing to do the mundane, as well as important tasks in school.
• Seek salaried employees who will not lose money by participating.
• If participants wear uniforms in their profession, they should wear their uniforms in class. This will give greater identification when photographs are taken.

Sending invitations

Once you've decided how many people to invite—and who they should be—send a written invitation from your local Association president and perhaps your school administration if it is a joint project. (See sample at end of page.)

All of those invited, or serving as an education support professional, should be given the choice of teaching a prepared lesson plan or one of their own. Ask them to indicate a preference for subject/grade areas so that when follow-up communication takes place (by phone or letter), they can be matched with the appropriate cooperating educator.

When you have your list of acceptances and cooperating school employees finalized, you can then pair them, and send each an Educator for a Day note indicating who their cooperating educator is and when they will be meeting prior to the actual day of the program (or suggesting they make their own arrangements to do so). At the same time, inform the cooperating educators of the pairings.

Then, once your pairings are finalized, fill out a form that lists cooperating educators with Educators for a Day. (Suggested format example appears at the end of this page.) The form should be kept for your own records, and copies should be sent to cooperating educators, guests, and administration.

On the Day

Tips for cooperating educators

The cooperating educators are central to the success of this program since they will have the most contact throughout the day with the guests. As such, they will be the key "ambassadors" of your school and should have a common sense of the purpose of the day and some common objectives in meeting that purpose.

Among the things you should convey to your cooperating teachers are the following:

• Educators for a Day should become involved in the instructional process and should be actively involved to the maximum degree possible. Cooperating educators must be present at all times but should leave the bulk of the day's duties to the guests.
• If cooperating educators have not met with Educators for a Day prior to the start of classes, they should provide them with a detailed schedule of the day by email, including all classes, supervision/duties, break times, and after school duties, if any.
• Make sure all cooperating educators are aware of publicity details in connection with the day. Reporters may want to talk to cooperating school employees as well as Educators for a Day. There should be specific times during which photographers and reporters are allowed into classrooms to minimize disruptions. Make sure all cooperating educators are aware of the times during which media coverage will be permitted.

Brief your guests

As previously mentioned, it is advisable to have cooperating educators and Educators for a Day meet prior to the actual day of the program to become familiar with one another, and to enable the cooperating school employee to get a sense of the guest's involvement. Therefore, a briefing session might be appropriate. At that time, the cooperating educators should go over the day's lesson plans or activities.

Assuming the Educator for a Day is able to perform all duties, he or she should be thoroughly briefed concerning how those duties are performed. Cooperating school employees should reassure all Educators for a Day that they will be present at all times to step in and assist them.

Are there legal implications?

For legal purposes, people participating in Educator for a Day should be viewed as paraprofessionals or teacher aides. As long as a certified teacher is in the classroom or with the Educator for a Day during other activities at all times, the outside guest can take part in the instructional process. Guests must be under the strict supervision of the regular classroom teacher.

Should an emergency or disciplinary situation occur during the visitor's stay in the classroom, the cooperating educator and/or school employee should take control.

Promoting Educator for a Day

Your first communication should be internal. Once you have set the guidelines for Educator for a Day in your community and finalized the program with school administration, those details should be communicated to all school employees. Inform your internal audiences through a memo or your local newsletter.

Next, your PR Committee should perform the following functions:

• Send out an initial news release, either directly from your Association or in conjunction with the school administration, announcing the scheduling of Educator for a Day and what it hopes to achieve. (See sample below.) This release should be sent out about 10 days prior to the day of the program.
• Try to make sure that one of your Educators for a Day is a reporter, editor, or media representative who can "double" his or her experience by writing about it or reporting it on the air. The entire Educator for a Day concept is a natural media event; whether a reporter participates or simply covers it, there are numerous story angles. Try to get the newspaper to send a photographer as well as a reporter.
• Once all cooperating educators have been paired with their Educators for a Day, develop a directory or fact sheet on participants and send copies to all media. (See sample below.) Be sure this sheet details the specific times during which reporters and photographers will be permitted to enter classrooms and other school facilities. Disruption of the educational process must be held to a minimum.
• Designate a media contact to which any questions can be directed.
• If necessary, provide everyone with a map showing how to get to your school.
• Shortly before the actual day of the event, send a follow-up release to all media and provide the necessary details regarding time and place.
• Develop a "tip sheet" for media, as a separate element or part of one of the above elements, indicating potential news/photo opportunities, as well as re-emphasizing specific items for entering classrooms and other school facilities.
• If your Educators for a Day are on social media, encourage them to share their experiences via Facebook and Twitter and to follow NEA Today on Facebook and Bluesky. Provide them with a list of sample posts to help promote the event.
• Plan a reception in a central location immediately after school and/or a news conference or a series of interviews with Educators for a Day to allow reporters to speak with participants to gain their impressions of the day's events. Consider inviting students to give the press another angle on the day's events. Ask the PTA/PTO to contribute refreshments to involve them as well.
• Be sure to gather media coverage, send a copy to NEA Public Relations, and keep a copy for your Association's records.

Don't forget the Follow-Up

There are a number of important things to do after you hold your Educator for a Day event. If for some reason there is a lack of media coverage during the actual day, you should approach participants, gather a few comments, and put out an appropriate news release/story detailing their reactions.

In addition to certificates of appreciation for guests, write thank you letters to all the people who contributed to the success of Educator for a Day, including your school superintendent, school committee members, media people, cooperating educators, and school employees.