Around late July every year, my husband and I sit down with our calendars and make sincere attempts to plan our year according to the first-year teacher’s roller coaster. Where might we strategically schedule date nights? Or a comforting pasta night or two? What should we do in the week leading up to that inevitable time in October when all things seem to fall apart in school?

My husband and I met as teachers in Atlanta, and while I left the classroom several years ago, he has been a high school administrator for the last six years. We learned quickly that this roller coaster isn’t just for first-year teachers. We are mindful of this cycle and do our best to respond to the inevitable peaks and valleys of the year—finding hope and renewal in early August, crashing into the fall, and coming alive again with the promise of spring.

It’s barely adequate to say that COVID and its variants have laughed heartily in the face of our attempts to conquer the calendar. It’s the hardest time of our lives. January usually begins the emotional upswing, but this year we were greeted by news of omicron and a wave of teacher absences, followed by predictions that “The Great Resignation” will soon hit our schools. Evidence abounds that this is a hard moment, from an announcement out of Texas that nine superintendents in one region are departing, to news from New Mexico that due to a lack of available educators, the governor would be jumping in to serve as a substitute teacher, to reports nationwide of hundreds of schools closing for days.

Those of us who’ve been educators know that some level of staff movement is normal every year, and that it’s natural for up to half of teachers to consider other work or to experience long vacancies to fill critical teaching positions. We have faced national teaching shortages before. In many ways, this turbulence isn’t profoundly new to many schools. It’s part of the cycle. That got me thinking: What are the root and systemic causes that make this moment feel almost predictable? In what ways does the very design of the teacher role encourage crisis and what immediate to long-term solutions can we activate?

As head of learning at Transcend, a nonprofit that works to reimagine school design, I recently convened over 150 members of the Transcend Design Community, which brings together educators, school and systems leaders, academics, innovators and others thinking about education, in a shared space for collaboration and knowledge sharing. We asked: What can schools do in the immediate, mid-range, and long-term to reimagine adult roles and teacher capacity?

I have been floored by the response—such urgency, such depth of creativity, such generative thinking. Educators know what they need, administrators have wildly creative solutions and parents want to play a role.