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It’s March. The weather is shifting. Spring break is coming. And quietly, many math leaders have already started thinking about next year.

Budgets. Staffing. PD planning. Testing season. Fatigue.

It becomes easy to let this year wind down early—to shift staff meetings to logistics, to soften expectations, to delay the hard work until September. But when we ease off the gas in March, we slow the math improvement flywheel we’ve worked all year to build.

In This Episode, You’ll Learn

• Why March fatigue leads math leaders to prematurely shift into “next year mode”

• How easing off math improvement work now disrupts momentum for September

• What “keep the math flywheel turning” actually means in practice

• Why unrelenting focus (not more initiatives) protects system coherence

• How budget pressures and staffing changes make systems even more important

• What finishing strong really looks like for math leaders

Ask yourself: What does finishing strong mean in my role?
Keep one foot in next year—but don’t lift the other foot out of this year just yet.

Attention District Math Leaders:

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Looking to supplement your curriculum with problem based lessons and units? Make Math Moments Problem Based Lessons & Units

FULL TRANSCRIPT

Yvette Lehman:
this episode is going to be released at the beginning of March. And I feel like we all need to acknowledge the March fatigue. I feel like there’s something about this time of year where everybody, and I think for us, particularly here in the Northern hemisphere is spring, right? And we’re looking ahead to this transition or this change. And it feels like as the weather changes, we’re like, well, the year is almost over. We have our, you know, spring break in the middle of March. We come back from March break and it’s like,

Jon Orr:
March fatigue.

Yvette Lehman:
we’re sliding into the end here. You know, we’re, winding down. We’re, we’re doing kind of cleanup at this point. And so our call to action today is don’t fall into this trap, everybody. Like we’re going to give some practical recommendations for how we can overcome the March slump.

Jon Orr:
So there’s the March slump for teachers, for sure. And there’s March slump for leaders. And I think today we want to specifically talk to you leaders, math coaches, coordinators, administrators, thinking about… Because I think primarily when you hit this time of year in March, your immediate… Like you said, we’re tired and the slump is here, but what we do is we go, we got a plan for next year.

budgets times, like we’re naturally put in these positions to be like, well, we need to like plan for budgeting next year, which means I gotta start planning for next year. And that perpetuates the, don’t do any more things this year. I don’t continue with the things this year. I don’t double down. We slump off and we’re like, well, this year is a write off for the rest of the year because, testing season’s coming. Or, you know, we tried hard between now and then, but now it’s like, we’re not,

So we might as well plan for next year and we get in this habit of always planning for next year at this early time, because you’re like, well, we gotta be ready for next year. But we wanna kind of address that issue as well, because I think that’s part of the why as a leader, you let your foot up off the gas right now or you’re feeling tired and it’s easier to plan for next year than figure out how can I make this year as meaningful.

and is impactful moving into the very end of the year before we move on to next year. Not to say that we’re not gonna plan for next year at the same time, but I think that’s gonna be our main recommendation here is don’t let your foot up off the guest. Don’t say, hey, this year’s over, let’s plan for next year. Let’s practically complete and go through what we need to go through this year so that we can make every hour, every day account. All right, how we do it? How do we do it?

Beth Curran:
Yeah. Yeah, that’s the big question, right? How do we keep that momentum going? So I think just like coming out, coming back to school after the winter break, it’s always a nice time to sort of regroup. Think about that North Star, your big why, what are the goals that you’re trying to achieve this year and to really focus again on those, bringing everyone back into that. Yeah, we’re entering into testing. We’re entering into the spring. There’s lots of interruptions with the school day.

Beth Curran:
But what are the things that we can still do to keep moving toward that change that we want? What can we keep doing, little as it might be, to keep that flywheel turning, to keep that needle moving? Because the reality of it is, everything that we do between now and the end of the school year is going to affect students next year as well, right? So what do we need to do to keep our teachers motivated, right?

Jon Orr:
Right. Yeah.

To talk about teachers, because I think that’s part of the reason that we slide into the end of the year is because we’re ending the year and teachers are like, I need every hour in front of kids because I haven’t taught the full curriculum load and I got to make this up or the testing’s coming and we got to prepare for that a month in advance or two weeks in advance. And so I think maybe as leaders, we tend to say, let’s make sure, let’s…

Let’s we don’t want to disturb. We don’t want to add on. We don’t want to like keep this going because if I’m planning a staff meeting and I’m looking at the itinerary that I want to do for the staff meeting because it helps us reach our math improvement goals. And it’s one of those little moves that actually move our math improvement flywheel around and get stronger every year might be to do math with our teachers at every interaction we get with them, which means when we have a staff meeting, we’re going to do a little bit of math, but you might be like, but wait a minute.

maybe we should just focus on some of the logistics of the test coming up and let’s make sure that everybody’s got the, you we can do this and we’ll use that time instead of planning still to do the little move that keeps the flywheel because that’s, it’s the end of the year. Well, we could do more of that next year and let’s let teachers have this time to like, to focus on the end of the year. And I think,

There’s a lot of issues right there. What I just said, because of like goal setting and what you’re really priority at prioritizing them. But I think that is playing into the, don’t want to, I don’t want to feel like I’m adding to teachers plates when they have a plate full. do. They have a plate full, but what you’re saying is like these little moves that turn the flywheel. I’m going to, I’m going to push off to the side right now when we’re saying don’t do it.

Beth Curran:
I was just going to say it’s easy, I think, to get caught up in that frenzy of coming to the end school year too. Right? And so again, as a leader, I think it can’t be said enough that, you know, let’s look ahead at our, at the curriculum. We’re not using, our curriculum is our resource that’s going to help us reach this goal that we’re trying to achieve.

Beth Curran:
Right? So it’s not that we have to turn every page and get through every piece of the resource. And so as a leader, letting your teachers know that it’s okay if we don’t cover everything, but here’s what’s most important maybe to cover before the end of the year. And so letting them know that it’s okay to kind of pick and choose right now, as long as we keep working on these best practices and we keep shifting our instruction so that we keep that flywheel moving.

Yvette Lehman:
I was actually, that was a perfect segue into this idea of we keep talking about the flywheel. And I think a flywheel is such a great analogy for this work, of course, you know, that the lift is really heavy at first, but when momentum starts to build, you know, becomes easier and easier. And then it starts to gain speed. And I think about the impact we have on the flywheel when we abandon the work in the second half of the year or the last third of the year, because let’s be real, you know, for some of you listening, you might be in the last third.

Yvette Lehman:
You know, here in Ontario, we’re just starting our second semester. And when we kind of make the excuse, intentionally or unintentionally, that all the real work is going to happen next year, or there’s too much on our plates going into the end of the year, what we’re really doing is we are disrupting the momentum of our flywheel. The flywheel picture, it’s slowing down. We’re saying it’s no longer as important. We’re falling back on, we’ve maybe built up

norms and routines and staff meetings and PLCs all year long, but now we’re falling back on using that time for logistics. So then come September, we have to rebuild the momentum again. We have to reestablish norms and expectations and build habits and behaviors around professional development structures, when if we had really just finished strong and maintained our commitment to prioritizing this work through the last stretch of the year.

it wouldn’t have been as heavy to get it rolling again in September. So maybe it isn’t, maybe there, we need to do fewer things. Maybe it’s like our capacity to do everything we’ve been doing up until this point isn’t realistic, but the things that we are going to continue to do, we need to do them well and with integrity. And I loved, I was talking to a leader this morning who works, you know, at a district office level and she was saying, you know, in some ways we need to be unrelenting.

Yvette Lehman:
And you had mentioned, Beth, recently, it’s like, have to be resilient in this work. It’s really hard to not to get distracted by shiny new ideas, to get distracted by other priorities, but it’s like, if this is what matters, if this is the work that we fundamentally believe is going to strengthen our system, we can’t abandon it in the final stretch.

Jon Orr:
Yeah, and I think what we’re, because when you’re saying this is the work, we have like the, I guess sometimes, and this is the first time you’ve listened to our podcast, you’re like, what is the work?

You know, like, what are they? What are they talking about? Because sometimes we have this insider baseball information that we share with ourselves. But, you know, this is the work. You know the work is your math improvement, like you said, the flywheel. But it’s like your math improvement plan. Like, what are the moves that we make to achieve the goals that we set for the year? Like the one thing that we want to see improvement on in terms of our classroom instruction.

We’ve shared in the past this idea of this compass, this math coherence compass, which is a really decision making framework to help you decide what are the moves? Where are my strengths? What can we rely on? What do I value in terms of how students learn or how educators learn and how educators can apply that knowledge? What is it we’re all striving for? The vision, the PD structures, our supports, the one objective, the beliefs, these all matter.

When you are clear, because this is what it comes down to, when you’re clear around what change you’re hoping to make and how you can measure that change, then you can be unrelenting on that change because you know what you’re trying to make and it’s clear to you and you’ve made it clear to your team and the people you’re supporting and the schools that you support on what that change looks like.

It’s really hard at this time of the year to say, I’m going to be unrelenting on math improvement when I don’t know what that looks like. When I don’t know what change looks like, when I don’t know how to measure the goal that I’ve set for the year on seeing whether improvement happens.

So what happens is you have no choice because you don’t have the compass and you don’t have the vision. So you step back and go, well, I don’t want to disturb teachers. And I want to make sure that they have what they need because they want to make sure that they can go into testing or wrap the year up. So I will start planning for next year.

And it’s exciting to plan for next year. It’s exciting to think about the thing that you’re going to be working on and plan for a budget because next year is like the renewal. It’s like springtime. I get to think about the future. That’s exciting for me.

Instead of understanding what requires you to turn the flywheel, because you know how the flywheel moves. You know what it’s turning towards. And the reality is, even when you know it, so first you have to know it, which is hard and a lot of work.

And then even if you know it, it’s still hard because those little things like what you said, Yvette, you know, the coaching, the moves that you’re working with coaches, or the coaches being in the classrooms and the PLC work that’s constantly being relentless because we’re constantly looking at student data and we’re not using it as a staff meeting or a logistics meeting.

We are doing math every time at staff meetings with teachers. We keep turning the flywheel. Those are hard things. And sometimes it feels not as exciting to do that work. And it becomes monotonous. But those are the moves that turn the flywheel.

Because every little move you make makes that flywheel turn a little easier. And so even though it’s sometimes boring and not exciting, even when you know what you’re trying to improve, it’s hard to stick with that.

And that’s why I think we all look to next year. It’s easier. It’s easier to think to next year. We’re going to encourage you to say, if you’re clear, if you know the moves that you want to make and how to measure your success, double down on those moves.

What are those moves that will create that success? And if you’re not sure, you have to find a way to become sure. And that becomes your work. That’s the work for the rest of the year so that you’re not repeating this again next year.

Beth Curran:
Yeah. John, I want to address something that I heard you say about how this time of year we’re thinking about budgets, we’re thinking about staffing, we’re thinking, and this is all exciting stuff. Well, the reality of it is that a lot of schools and school districts are probably faced with budgets that aren’t exciting. They’re looking at cuts. They’re looking at reduction in staff.

So this is also a time, I think, to look at your system and to think about knowing that there might be a potential loss of a staff position next year, who maybe this year did an excellent job supporting teachers, what system can we put in place to keep that momentum going?

What structures, who could we identify as the leaders that might take over that work if someone else leaves the system? And so I think that that’s something also that we have to be realistic about that a lot of this time of year might not be exciting for a lot of districts because they are faced with budget cuts coming up.

Yvette Lehman:
I think our call to action, kind of wrapping up this episode today is, what does finishing strong mean to you in your role? You know, and it’s a really good time. It’s like a, like you said, it’s springtime, it’s renewal, it’s a time for reflection.

It’s like when you say, you know, I’m going to finish this year strong. I’m going to double down on what’s moving the needle. I’m going to focus on strengthening maybe fewer things that I know are high leverage.

What I’m not going to do is come into the mindset already in March that this year is over and I already have both feet in next year.

So that’s kind of for our listeners today, this is your call to action, right? I need a foot in both school years at this point, because like to your point, we have to make decisions about budgets and staffing and PD plans for next year.

And I need to have forward thought about where this learning is going to go and evolve. But really think about the summer learning slide for students.

Jon Orr:
Put your foot, yeah. Put your foot over there, right? But keep a foot here. Right.

Yvette Lehman:
Right? So we know that what the research says about the summer learning slide and how those two months can have a significant regression in growth we’ve seen over the year. The same can be said for professional development.

And now if we’re making that gap five months, four months instead of two, we have to actually put so much effort into rebuilding the loss come September or August than we would have if we had continued strong and we’d move people from mechanical towards routine by the end of the year if we’d established more habits through strength and support and ongoing feedback right until the end.

Jon Orr:
True, true. So I think another call to action here is obviously to do exactly what Yvette just said, is ask yourself, what does the end of the year look like?

But the other question to ask yourself is a question that we ask all the teams that we support. When you get to the end of the year, and it’s coming because you’re already thinking about it, you have to ask yourself, what were the moves that we made this year to get us closer to our improvement goals and how do I know that we made progress on those?

If you don’t know the answer to that right now, that means you aren’t clear probably on the one thing or the one change or the one improvement piece that you wanted to make and the structures that helped you get there.

Because otherwise you would be saying, I know exactly what to look at right now to see where we are on that improvement goal.

And so your work now becomes to prepare for that going into the end of this year and the next year so that next year at this time you can answer that question.

And that’s what we always tell our teams because you don’t want to keep going year to year wondering if you made impact this year.

You want to know what the impact was and be able to state what that impact is because it will help you make decisions moving into the next year. It’ll help you keep that flywheel turning.

So we talked about a math coherence compass that can help gain this clarity that you’re looking for.

You can get a copy of that over at makemathmoments.com forward slash coherence, makemathmoments.com forward slash coherence.

Get your math coherence compass, gain the clarity for this year and into next year, and then ask yourself, what does the end of the year look like for you?

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