Learn More

40 Hour Workweek

Productivity Strategies, Teaching Tips & Tricks   |   Nov 1, 2016

3 ways to join the 40 Hour Teacher Workweek Club at no cost to you

By Angela Watson

Founder and Writer

3 ways to join the 40 Hour Teacher Workweek Club at no cost to you

By Angela Watson

The 40 Hour Teacher Workweek Club provides professional development on productivity to educators who want to focus on what REALLY matters, both in and outside of the classroom. Thousands of teachers have already starting trimming hours off their workweek by getting organized, streamlining routines, giving kids ownership of the classroom, and being truly intentional about how they use their instructional, contractual, and personal time.

Here’s what club members receive:

  • 52 weeks of new classroom-tested productivity strategies (provided in both PDF and audio form) which are accessible through a private membership site
  • Hundreds of dollars worth of printable teaching resources and templates to help you save time
  • Access to elementary and secondary private Facebook groups where I–and thousands of other teachers—share ideas and answer questions
  • Two free bonuses, The 40HTW List-Making System and The Big 5 Tips for Teacher Productivity
  • A professional development certificate at the end of the year to document 104 hours of continuing education credits

Even better? You keep your access to the entire program AND the Facebook group even after your year is up, so you can revisit the resources at any time and continue to get support from your cohort.

If you’ve been thinking about joining the club but aren’t sure if the $119 price point is in your budget, here are three alternative ways to join without paying the cost yourself. The 40 Hour Teacher Workweek Club

1. Obtain funding through DonorsChoose

The club has been approved as a professional development source with DonorsChoose. If you teach in a public school in the United States, you can create what’s called a “special project” and solicit donations for PD just like you would for any other DonorsChoose request.

The project must be fully funded by July 7th, 2017, in order for you to join with the July cohort. You can access information about the research behind the club and its impact on teacher effectiveness in order to help you explain the purpose of your project and obtain funding. Gift certificates for the 40 Hour Teacher Workweek Club are now available

2. Use a gift certificate

We have quite a few members who received their membership as present. Parents, spouses, partners, and even friends pooled their money together in an effort to help their loved one feel less stress and have more time. A few of these members didn’t even request the gift–their significant others saw the club advertisement and decided they wanted their partners to have a life again!

If you have a birthday coming up, you can make gift-giving simple for your family, and say you want the gift of TIME with them more than anything else. A gift certificate to the club can help make that happen.

Sponsoring a membership is simple—and it’s an awesome gift for student teachers, college graduation gifts, goodbye gifts for colleagues who are transferring to other schools, and so on.

Just have the gift giver complete a form (which will be linked here in May) and enter payment information for the one-time fee of $129. When the July 2017 cohort is open for new enrollments (June 28-July 7), our team will contact you (or whoever the the gift recipient is) with login and membership info.

(We won’t say a word until June 28th, so that YOU can give the gift without worrying we’ll spoil the surprise!)

3. Apply for a scholarship (May 1-15th)

To help ensure that financial need doesn’t prevent a deserving teacher from joining the club, I’m also awarding 20 applicants full scholarships to the program for the July 2017 cohort!

To apply, you simply create a video (no longer than 3 minutes) telling me who you are, what your teaching dream is, and why you want to be part of the 40 Hour Teacher Workweek Club. This does not have to be super formal or professional—just be yourself, and keep it short.

Then, fill out the form (which will be linked here in May 2017) and include a link to your video. I’m looking for real “action takers” to award these scholarships to. The sooner you get your video completed, the better! I’m also looking for a resourceful teacher who takes initiative in solving new challenges, so if you’ve never recorded a video and uploaded it somewhere before, you’ll need to figure out how.

I encourage you to visit the 40HTW page to learn more about how the club can help you, and check out the article called Which teachers get the BEST results from the club? This will tell you more about the 6 characteristics of our members who tend to be very successful with creating new productivity habits and maintaining them over time.

I’m hoping to award these 30 scholarships to people who will get tremendous results from the club. So, be sure these characteristics would apply to you AND clearly convey that through your application. The more determined you are to create change in your life, the better your results will be.

We will take scholarship submissions in May 2017. My team and I will review the videos, and you will be contacted by June 1st if you have been awarded a scholarship. The club opens to new members twice a year, so scholarship winners will be added to the July 2017 cohort.

Sign up here to be notified when scholarship applications are open. 

BONUS OPTION: School licensing is available beginning July 2017!

If 5 or more teachers from your school are interested in joining the club, let your principal know. There may be PTA funds, grant money, or a professional development budget to cover the cost.

School licensing is $129.99 per teacher, and includes advanced access to the entire year’s worth of club content so that your teachers/admin can determine the best order to proceed through the materials. There will also be discussion and reflection questions for your team to consider each month and bonus videos to use in flipped PD/staff meetings.

School licensing can be secured via credit/debit card or purchase order. Beginning in July, this option will be available indefinitely (not just when the club is accepting new members from June 28-July 7, since you’ll be moving through the materials at your own pace determined by the school.)

Sign up here for more info when it’s released.

Angela Watson

Founder and Writer

Angela created the first version of this site in 2003, when she was a classroom teacher herself. With 11 years of teaching experience and more than a decade of experience as an instructional coach, Angela oversees and contributes regularly to...
Browse Articles by Angela

Discussion


  1. I drive 84 miles daily to and from a teaching job that has become less than my dream situation. I once coordinated a university program on Taiwan. What has happened besides age and lost commute time to make this whole business so much more stressful and almost to the point of feeling ready to quit.

  2. Angela, I have been teaching for 30 years and over the past two years am having difficulty keeping up with everything. I am currently taking care of my elderly parents which is a full time job in and of itself. I am interested in joining your club but not sure I can afford it at this time due to the expense of my parents care. I do not need the credits but am anxious to learn how to use my time more effectively.

    1. Hi there, Pam! I can only imagine how busy and tired you must be. I’m sorry you missed the scholarship opportunity this time around!

      My advice, if you can’t join this time, is to watch for those scholarships to be announced again in the spring, or to get funding through Donors Choose. All the best to you!

  3. Hi- I’m interested in joining, but am curious if the success of shredding hours at home is with an expected set amount of “plan” time provided in a teacher’s contracted hours?

    1. Hi there, Erin! Great question. If you don’t have a lot of planning time, you will have to work more hours on your own in order to get everything done. So the amount of hours you’re able to cut back will probably be less than someone who is given more planning time. That said, the average club member has been able to trim 11 hours off their workweek (going from 62 hours to 51.)

Leave a Reply

Want to join the discussion? Feel free to contribute!