Australia’s new Right to Disconnect law is here, but are school leaders truly embracing it? Since 26 August 2024, most teachers and staff have gained the legal right to ignore unreasonable work-related communication outside their paid hours.

While this sounds like a victory for work-life balance, school leaders face a challenge—how do you respect this boundary while ensuring the school runs smoothly? And could this actually help with the ongoing teacher shortage crisis? Let’s explore.

Why Schools Need to Pay Attention

Teaching has long been a profession that spills beyond the traditional workday. Emails late at night, weekend lesson planning, marking into the early hours—this is the reality for many educators.

The Right to Disconnect law aims to protect staff from being always “on.” If school leaders truly support this shift, they should see positive changes in teacher well-being, retention, and even classroom performance.

But will it also create new challenges?

What Leaders Should Be Noticing

If teachers and staff are disconnecting effectively, school leaders should start seeing:

• More engaged teachers: Less burnout means more energy in the classroom.
• Better focus during work hours: A well-rested teacher is a better teacher. The Right to Disconnect hones in on a fundamental pain point for teachers and staff—never being able to leave the job. If that burden is removed, then we can extrapolate that teacher engagement levels—when they are at work—are destined to improve.
• Improved staff retention: Happier teachers are less likely to leave the profession.
• Healthier work culture: A culture of respect for personal time encourages long-term commitment. The development of this culture demonstrates that school leaders are focused on remediating workload pressures, so it's inevitable that teachers and staff will show more commitment and loyalty to the school. 

But let’s be honest—schools don’t operate like regular businesses. Parents expect responses, emergencies arise, and schools rely on teachers’ dedication. The challenge lies in balancing the right to disconnect with the realities of running a school.

Could This Help Solve the Teacher Shortage?

Australia’s teacher shortage is a growing crisis. Schools struggle to fill positions, and workload is a significant reason teachers are walking away.

Encouraging staff to disconnect could be a step in the right direction. By setting more explicit boundaries, schools might:

• Make teaching a more sustainable career.
• Reduce burnout-related resignations.
• Attract new talent with a better work-life balance.

However, disconnecting alone won’t fix the problem. If schools don’t also address workload issues, teachers may still feel overwhelmed—just within a shorter timeframe.

Finding the Balance: Disconnecting Without Disrupting

School leaders need to support the Right to Disconnect without ignoring operational realities. Here’s how:

• Prioritise workload management: Ensure realistic expectations so teachers don’t need to work after hours.
• Respect boundaries but allow flexibility: Some urgent matters will need attention, but these should be exceptions, not the rule.
• Improve communication habits: Schedule emails for work hours, set clear response-time expectations, and encourage more intelligent workflows.
• Encourage delegation: Admin tasks shouldn’t always fall on teachers—use support staff where possible. One example I noticed this week was observing senior leaders and faculty heads manually inputting meeting and event schedules into their online calendars from a document-formatted table. If that takes each leader an hour to complete, it costs the school thousands when a single administration person could have finished it in under 2-3 hours at a fraction of the cost. I expect the same issue to occur for all teaching staff, too, exponentially increasing the wastage of time and effort.

What About Leadership Teams?

While the Right to Disconnect laws don't apply to principals and leaders, teachers often follow the behaviours they model. If leaders constantly work outside hours, staff may feel pressured to do the same.

A culture shift has to start at the top. Leaders can:

• Set clear expectations around after-hours communication. Some leaders prefer to respond or send emails after hours, so scheduling a delivery time in the future (e.g., 8:00 a.m. the next day) reduces teacher angst during their off-work hours.
• School leaders often struggle to set boundaries for parents and students during their time and those of their staff. Communicating when teachers and staff are available is the first step. Setting up rules within email services that send an out-of-office response to emails received after a specific time can undoubtedly assist.  
• Model work-life balance themselves. 
• Trust staff to manage their time effectively.

Will This Actually Work?

The success of the Right to Disconnect laws in schools depends on how well they are implemented. If leaders support them in theory but still expect late-night emails to be answered, it won’t make a difference. But if schools genuinely commit to changing how work is managed, it could improve teacher retention and school culture.

The key takeaway? School leaders don’t have to choose between supporting their staff’s right to disconnect and running an efficient school. With thoughtful planning, they can do both.

Final Thought: Is Your School Ready?

If you’re a school leader, ask yourself:

• Are we respecting staff’s right to disconnect?
• Have we reviewed workloads to prevent after-hours work?
• Are we setting the right example for our teams?

The teacher shortage crisis won’t be solved overnight, but creating a culture that values balance might just be a step in the right direction. If your school isn’t talking about this yet, now is the time to start.

What’s your take? Are schools supporting their staff in disconnecting, or is it just lip service? Let’s discuss!