Do teachers have the right to disconnect?

Sep 11, 2024

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The short answer is: yes, teachers have the right to disconnect. It gets a bit more complicated for school leaders, unfortunately. Principals associations and Departments of Education in various states are still looking at how the new laws will apply to leaders, read more here.

From 26 August 2024 most employees in Australia have the right not check and respond to work communications during non-working hours. The new rules don't apply to small businesses until August 2025 but very few, if any, schools would fall into this category with fewer than 15 employees.

The right to disconnect applies to messages, calls and social media from the employer as well as third parties, which would include parents and students. It uses the language, 'employees... have the right to refuse to monitor, read or respond to contact (or attempted contact) outside their working hours, unless doing so is unreasonable' (Fair Work Ombudsman).

Since 'unreasonable' is a subjective term, pretty much every article I read encourages employees, managers and employers to have open discussions about expectations and to record the agreed parameters. If you are concerned your rights are being contravened, contact your union or the Fair Work Commission. I presume as this law gets put in place, cases will come forward that further clarify reasonableness of after-hours contact.

The caveat is that some jobs in education have extended hours or emergency contact responsibilities. For example, residence hall supervisors or under 18 guardians could reasonably be expected to be available out of hours. Also, when on camp a teacher might be expected to monitor their messages outside normal hours. This expectation should be written into the contract and people in those positions would need to be fairly compensated for that extended availability.

This right to disconnect is not a new idea. In 2017 France put similar laws in place and now about 20 other countries have followed their example (ABC News). Also, there are Australian employers, such as Telstra, who have already implemented these boundaries for employees.

It can be hard to change habits and expectations if you've been very available to your students in the past. Here are some suggestions to help you disconnect:

Dog leaning on laptop — In case you need a cute reason to disconnect

United we stand: make a team or, ideally, whole staff agreement about when messages will be checked and sent then communicate this to students and parents. If there is vital information students or parents will need over the weekend, send it before you logoff on Friday and link to it in your out-of-office message. Consider changing due dates so assignments aren't due on Sundays, meaning students won't need to message teachers in a panic over the weekend.
Use technology for good: set an out-of-office auto-reply over the weekend and on non-work days, put your work days/hours in your email signature, and remove or pause work communication tools, such as Teams or Compass, on your phone using focus mode. Finally, schedule messages so they go out during business hours.
Take care of yourself: sometimes well-being means knowing what you're walking into on Monday morning so if you need to check messages out of hours, set boundaries such as one check at 4pm on Sunday and read only but no replying until Monday.

Further Reading