How to Convince Your Principal That Your Whole School Needs Common Planner

You love Common Planner. It keeps your lesson plans organized, saves you time, and makes it easy to reuse lessons from year to year. Now imagine if your whole school used it! Your team could collaborate more easily, everyone could keep their plans in one place, and your principal could view lesson plans and leave feedback without chasing down documents.

Sounds pretty great, right? There's just one thing standing in the way: convincing your principal. 👀

The good news is that you don't need to put together a big presentation. You just need to show how Common Planner could make things easier for teachers and school leaders. We've put together a few talking points and a ready-to-send email to help you make the case.

6 reasons your principal will love Common Planner

Your principal probably isn't looking for another piece of software. They're looking for ways to support teachers, improve instruction, and make school-wide processes run more smoothly. Here's how Common Planner can help.

1. No more chasing down lesson plans

When teachers keep plans in different places, finding the right lesson can be a challenge. With Common Planner's Instructional Hub, school leaders can view lesson plans across classrooms without searching through folders or asking teachers to send them.

2. Give feedback without another meeting

Common Planner lets school leaders leave feedback directly on teachers' lesson plans, keeping everything connected to the lesson instead of buried in an email thread. That means less time tracking down information and more opportunities to support teachers.

Want to see how Common Planner works for school leaders? Read how schools are using Common Planner to simplify lesson plan reviews and support their teachers.

3. Know what's being taught across classrooms

Common Planner makes it easy for teachers to tag and track standards as they plan, while giving school leaders visibility into what's happening across classrooms. Leaders can keep an eye on pacing, see what's being taught, and identify potential gaps along the way.

4. Keep expectations consistent without limiting teachers

Schools can create shared lesson plan templates with the elements they expect teachers to include. Teachers still have the flexibility to customize their plans for different subjects, grade levels, and teaching styles.

5. Make collaboration easier for everyone

Whether you're planning with your grade-level team, co-teacher, or department, Common Planner makes it easy to share plans and work together. Everyone can stay on the same page without juggling multiple documents.

Don't just take our word for it! See how teachers are using Common Planner to save time and stay organized.

6. Give teachers more time back (and save them money!)

A school-wide planning tool shouldn't create more work for teachers or cost them money out of their own pockets. With a Common Planner school subscription, teachers get access to all the Pro features at no personal cost, including unit planning, standards tracking, and more. Plus, they can reuse lessons, collaborate with teammates, adjust their schedules, and get built-in AI assistance when they need it.

How to make the case to your principal

Here's the trick: Don't just tell your principal why you love Common Planner. Show them how it could solve a problem at your school.

Think about what your principal cares about most. Maybe your school is trying to make lesson planning expectations more consistent, your grade-level team struggles to collaborate, or teachers are spending too much time managing their plans.

Whatever it is, connect Common Planner to that problem. For example:

• If lesson plans are scattered everywhere: Explain how Common Planner gives teachers and school leaders one place to access them.
• If collaboration is a challenge: Share how your team could plan together without more meetings or maintaining multiple documents.
• If standards coverage is a priority: Point out how teachers can tag and track standards right inside their plans.
• If teachers are overwhelmed: Explain how reusing lessons and customizable templates could save everyone time.

You don't need to mention every feature. Just focus on one or two things that would make the biggest difference at your school. And don't forget to share how Common Planner has helped you personally!

Want to make your case even stronger? Include one of our school success stories so your principal can see how Common Planner is already helping other schools.

✉️ Copy and send this email to your principal

We've made this part easy for you! Just copy the email below, add a few details about your school, and send it along.

Subject: An idea to make lesson planning easier for our school

Hi [Principal's name],

I've been using Common Planner for my lesson planning, and I think it could be really helpful for our whole school!

It's made it easier for me to keep everything organized, reuse lessons, tag standards, and manage my plans. Common Planner also has tools specifically for schools that I think could benefit both our teachers and school leaders.

For teachers, it would make planning and collaborating easier. For you, it would provide one place to view lesson plans across classrooms, leave feedback, and see what's being taught without having to track down everyone's plans.

Plus, with a school subscription, all of our teachers would get access to the Pro features without having to pay for individual subscriptions.

I especially think it could help us with [insert something specific to your school, like improving collaboration, keeping lesson plans organized, or making planning expectations more consistent].

Would you be open to taking a look? Here's some more information about Common Planner for schools: https://www.commonplanner.com/for/schools

They also offer demos if you'd like to see how the school tools work: https://cal.com/team/commoncurriculum/cc-demo

Thanks!

[Your name]

Ready to get your whole school on Common Planner? 🎉

You already know how much easier lesson planning can be with Common Planner. Now it's time to share those benefits with your whole school! Copy the email above, add a detail or two about your school, and send it to your principal.

Who knows? You might just become everyone's favorite person in the teachers' lounge.