Sustainable Teaching with Rae Hughart

Teaching shouldn't break you. This Friday, we're kicking off Season 1 of Sustainable Teaching with Rae Hughart - five back-to-back episodes streaming live starting at 5am ET. You'll hear real conversations with real educators about what it actually looks like to do this work without burning out. No toxic positivity. No hustle culture. Just honest strategies from people who are still in...

Teaching shouldn't break you. This Friday, we're kicking off Season 1 of Sustainable Teaching with Rae Hughart — five back-to-back episodes streaming live starting at 5am ET. You'll hear real conversations with real educators about what it actually looks like to do this work without burning out. No toxic positivity. No hustle culture. Just honest strategies from people who are still in...

Teaching shouldn't break you. This Friday, we're kicking off Season 1 of Sustainable Teaching with Rae Hughart — five back-to-back episodes streaming live starting at 5am ET. You'll hear real conversations with real educators about what it actually looks like to do this work without burning out. No toxic positivity. No hustle culture. Just honest strategies from people who are still in...

Teaching shouldn't break you. This Friday, we're kicking off Season 1 of Sustainable Teaching with Rae Hughart — five back-to-back episodes streaming live starting at 5am ET. You'll hear real conversations with real educators about what it actually looks like to do this work without burning out. No toxic positivity. No hustle culture. Just honest strategies from people who are still in...

Teaching shouldn't break you. This Friday, we're kicking off Season 1 of Sustainable Teaching with Rae Hughart — five back-to-back episodes streaming live starting at 5am ET. You'll hear real conversations with real educators about what it actually looks like to do this work without burning out. No toxic positivity. No hustle culture. Just honest strategies from people who are still in...

Your school's designation just dropped—now what? This week, Rae delivers a full action plan to move from data point to success story, and introduces the new community tackling the exhaustion that comes with systemic pressure. Rae tackles the urgency of school designations, revealing the truth: real growth lives in the consistency across your whole building (paras, specialists, behavior, and cu...

This is your invitation to the real conversation. Rae Hughart is taking a pause from traditional PD to build a new space on Substack—a community for real talk about what's broken in education and actionable solutions for what actually works. If you're tired of inspirational quotes when you need a template, or self-care advice when you need systemic change , this is for you. In this special...

Rae unpacks the movement behind the new TDI Support Bundles (including the Autism, English Learner, and Para Support Expansions) that are changing the game. In this episode, you’ll hear: Why customization matters: Learn how these bundles are co-created by specialists (OTs, bilingual experts, and veteran paras) to deliver immediate, real-world results. The secret to PD that moves fast: How a less-t...

What if progress didn’t start with a new program—but with a real conversation? In this episode, Rae shares what happened during a 7:45 a.m. meeting in West Chicago that reminded the Teachers Deserve It team why this movement exists. Once administrators stepped out, the paraprofessionals started talking—really talking—and what followed wasn’t frustration. It was strategy, ownership, and problem-sol...

It’s observation season, and schools everywhere are talking about growth, evaluation, and “next steps.” But here’s the real question: Are you measuring the right things—or just tracking motion? In this week’s episode, Rae dives into how to stop throwing spaghetti at the wall with your PD plan and start seeing real, measurable progress. You’ll hear the key questions to ask before you renew another...

It’s observation season—clipboards out, data walls updated, and walkthroughs happening in every hallway. But when the focus is only on “core” classrooms, too many of our most creative educators get left out of the conversation. In this episode, Rae digs into what it really means to feed every teacher on your team. From art and music to PE and FACS, exploratory educators shape school culture every...

Todays episode is featuring a recent conversation Rae Hughart had on The Positive Persistence  Podcast with  Ian Bowen! The Positive Persistence Podcast was created to share stories of individuals who have overcome insurmountable odds by embodying the principle of Positive Persistence.
 
 Drawing from his own journey of defying paralysis, Ian launched the podcast to inspire listeners to tap into t...

BONUS EPISODE: Doing nothing feels safe—but it’s the costliest decision a school can make. In this episode of Teachers Deserve It: Real Talk , Rae Hughart breaks down the hidden toll of “waiting until next year” to invest in your teachers, paras, and leadership team. From skyrocketing turnover costs to burnout-driven culture shifts, Rae shares real stories from the field and reveals why delayed ac...

Doing nothing feels safe—but it’s the costliest decision a school can make. In this episode of Teachers Deserve It: Real Talk , Rae Hughart breaks down the hidden toll of “waiting until next year” to invest in your teachers, paras, and leadership team. From skyrocketing turnover costs to burnout-driven culture shifts, Rae shares real stories from the field and reveals why delayed action can drain...

Only have 5 min? Watch this quick video or listen in. Then, snag your FREE Playbook at: https://tdi.thinkific.com/products/digital_downloads/TDIGrants

Most schools are spending thousands on professional development that teachers forget in two weeks—while leaving untapped grant money sitting on the table. It doesn’t have to be this way. In this episode of Teachers Deserve It: Real Talk , Rae Hughart shares a simple, six-step system to make PD funded, effective, and stress-free for school leaders. Learn how to: Identify overlooked grants that cove...

The first week of school is chaos... routines aren’t set, emails are piling up, and staff are already exhausted from “one more thing.” Teachers don’t hate PD… they hate wasted time. In this episode of Teachers Deserve It: Real Talk , Rae Hughart breaks down the 3 things no teacher has time for in Week 1 and how to flip the script with practical tools that save time, reduce stress, and actually wor...

This week we’re pulling back the curtain on one of the simplest—but most powerful—things we do at Teachers Deserve It: designing plug-and-play tools that schools can use instantly to make professional development actually stick. In this episode, Rae shares the backstory of a tool created for one partner school that spread like wildfire when another district grabbed it, screenshot style, and ran wi...

In this week’s Teachers Deserve It Podcast , Rae Hughart gets real about the final stretch before back-to-school—and why “waiting” to make a professional development plan isn’t just procrastination, it’s a choice to add stress to your year. Rae walks through what principals are actually juggling right now—finalizing master schedules, planning institute days, welcoming new staff—and how TDI takes P...

Still staring at your PD plan like it might finish itself? This episode is your wake-up call and your shortcut. Rae Hughart kicks off the back-to-school leadership series with real talk about the chaos of August planning—and how to stop it in its tracks. She breaks down the #1 mistake school leaders make when designing professional development, introduces the TDI model that saves time (and sanity)...

We’ve made it to Part 6 of our Teacher-Tested Hacks for Smarter Days launch series—and we’re closing strong with educator, author, and coach Kevin J. Butler . Kevin’s strategy? Use student questions as the blueprint for building better units. In this final episode, Rae dives into Kevin’s clip and the brilliance behind centering instruction on what students are actually wondering. She reflects on t...

Part 5 of our Teacher-Tested Hacks for Smarter Days series gets to the heart of it all: your joy. In this episode, happiness coach and education consultant Kim Strobel shares a mindset shift that can help educators reclaim their identity, energy, and passion. Her message isn’t about toxic positivity—it’s about science-backed strategies for taking back what burnout tried to steal. Rae reflects on h...

It’s launch day—and Part 4 of our Teacher-Tested Hacks for Smarter Days series is bringing the 🎺 brass and the brilliance. This episode features award-winning educator, speaker, and musician Mickey Smith Jr. , who shares his go-to classroom strategy: the PPQ Method (Passion–Practice–Questions). It’s the kind of strategy that doesn’t just work—it sings. Mickey shows how inviting students to connec...

Part 3 of our 6-part spotlight series is here—and if you’ve been waiting for the mindset boost that actually hits? This is it. This episode features Timothy Alexander—better known as TA—an educator, coach, motivational speaker, and inclusion advocate whose story will absolutely stop you in your tracks. His clip, “You Can. You Will. You Must,” isn’t about strategy—it’s about belief. It's the vo...

When everything feels loud, fast, and on fire—what if all you needed was one intentional minute? In Part 2 of our 6-part launch series for Teacher-Tested Hacks for Smarter Days , Rae spotlights contributor Ipek Williamson , a certified mindfulness coach and emotional wellness advocate, whose strategy— The 60-Second Reset —gives educators a calm, powerful way to pause before reacting. Rae shares he...