Jed Wallace – April 10, 2026
Good day, CharterFolk.
Today we are pleased to share a Contributor Column from Jass Stewart, Chief Innovation & Impact Officer at Alliance College-Ready Public Schools.
We provide a bio for Jass below.
Jass Stewart is Chief Innovation & Impact Officer at Alliance College-Ready Public Schools. He leads long-term strategy, communication, marketing, advocacy, and innovation pilots, including a collaboration with Alliance’s Teaching & Learning and Network Initiatives teams on the Reimagining the Alliance Educator pilot, which expands teacher planning time, strengthens collaboration, and enhances student learning.
Previously, Jass was Deputy Chief of Staff at the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, overseeing strategy, operations, and communication across 400 school districts. He also served three terms as City Councilor at Large in Brockton, MA, and held leadership roles at Big Picture Learning and Blackside Productions (Eyes on the Prize). An Emmy-winning writer and director, he holds degrees from Boston University and Fitchburg State University and was a Senior Fellow at MIT.
We are fortunate to have been able to present other material here about extraordinary AllianceFolk in recent years, including a CharterFolk X post about Jonathan Tiongco, Founding Principal and Executive Director for the Alliance Marine – Innovation & Technology 6-12 Complex last year, and another from 2024 celebrating Frank Baxter, Founding Board Member and Past Board Chair of the Alliance.
Today we add our first Contributor Column from the organization. Let’s get right to it.
“Planning Time Isn’t a Perk. It’s Infrastructure: What if teacher burnout is a design problem, not a workforce problem?“
A recent survey highlighted by the Los Angeles Times found that nearly half of California teachers are considering leaving the profession.
The headlines point to burnout, compensation, and morale. But beneath those symptoms sits a more fundamental issue, one that system leaders have more control over than we often admit:
Time.
More specifically, time to plan.
The Hidden Design Flaw in Teaching
In the U.S., the average public school teacher receives roughly four hours of planning time during the school day each week. And yet, teachers report spending closer to 14 hours per week preparing instruction.
That gap – about ten hours – is where the system quietly breaks down.
It’s where lesson design, data analysis, and feedback get pushed into nights and weekends. It’s where a profession built on intellectual preparation becomes one sustained by personal sacrifice.
We often talk about teacher burnout as inevitable. But it’s worth asking: What if burnout is not a people problem, but a design problem?
