1.10 Disconnecting from Work

Crescent School believes that the ability for employees to disconnect from work is an important part of the School’s approach to personal and professional well-being. For the purpose of this Policy, the term “employees” includes all teachers and school staff, whether employed by the School on a permanent or contract, full-time or part-time basis.

Subject to the terms of this Policy, employees are permitted to disconnect from work outside of their hours of work.

“Disconnecting from work” means not engaging in work-related activities or communications, including emails, telephone calls, video calls or the sending or reviewing of other messages, so as to be free from the performance of work.

Employees may, based on their own schedules, find it more flexible to send emails outside of regular business hours. The School recognizes that each individual’s schedule may be different and is supportive of reasonable flexibility. Employees are encouraged to consider sending emails and voicemails during the School’s regular business hours. If an email or voicemail is sent outside of regular business hours, employees are encouraged to provide guidance to the recipient of the expected response time from the recipient (either a general discussion or a specific note in a specific email or voicemail which could include denoting the email as urgent).

The School wishes to provide employees reasonable flexibility and so does not discourage sending emails or voicemails outside of business hours; however, asks that employees (i) be considerate that recipients may feel compelled to answer outside of school-hours emails “right away” so encourages realistic response time expectations be conveyed to the recipient; and (ii) be aware that pursuant to this Policy, employees may have disconnected, and therefore may not review a message left outside of that employee’s working hours.

There will be circumstances where exceptions to this Policy are required due to critical or time-sensitive business issues. In the event that during their workday, an employee is aware, or is made aware, of a critical or time-sensitive issue that may require attention after the end of their workday, the School requires that the employee remain available and monitor their work communications after the end of the workday, and respond as appropriate to ensure business needs are met.

At the beginning of each school year or when a teacher takes on a new class the teacher should establish and communicate the parameters around which they will respond to emails and other forms of communication from students and parents outside of regular work hours. The same practice of establishing communication parameters should apply to any co-curricular activities the teacher may lead.

Employees who will be away from the school, for example on vacation, leaves of absence or school breaks, should turn on their out-of-office notifications and change their voicemail messages to communicate that they will not be responding until the next scheduled workday.

Except where an employee is aware that their attention may be required outside of their working hours, employees are not expected to respond to communications outside of their working hours. As such, in ordinary circumstances, an individual sending a communication to an employee outside of that employee’s working hours should not expect a response until the following business day.

This Policy does not restrict the School’s right to schedule and modify the hours of work of employees, nor does it prohibit employees from working outside of their regular hours of work.