How Lincoln Elementary Saved 15 Hours Per Week with AI Lesson Planning
A dedicated K-5 school used Zaza Teacher Suite and AutoPlanner to reclaim planning time, strengthen parent relationships, and lift student outcomes across the school.
Time saved
15 hours
saved per week on lesson planning
Parent engagement
+40 %
increase in parent participation
Student outcomes
+25 %
improvement in test scores
Lincoln Elementary School
Portland, Oregon
450 students · 18 teachers · Grades K-5
The Challenge
Lincoln Elementary School was facing the challenge that many schools know all too well. Teachers were spending upwards of 20 hours each week on lesson planning, worksheet creation, and administrative documentation. Evenings and weekends disappeared into planning, leaving little time for recovery or creative thinking in the classroom.
At the same time, expectations around parent communication were rising. Families wanted regular, meaningful updates. Teachers wanted to keep parents in the loop but could not sustain the workload required for long email threads and ad hoc messages.
Key pain points before implementation
- • 20+ hours per week spent on lesson planning
- • Inconsistent parent communication across classrooms
- • Limited time for differentiation and creative teaching
- • High teacher stress and risk of burnout
The Search for Solutions
The school leadership team knew that simply asking teachers to work harder was not sustainable. They started looking for a way to reduce admin load while protecting teaching quality and personal connection with families.
After evaluating several tools, the team chose Zaza Teacher Suite, focusing first on AutoPlanner for lesson design and Draft for parent communication. What stood out was the way Zaza kept teachers in control while doing the heavy lifting on structure, wording, and formatting.
Implementation Strategy
Lincoln Elementary took a phased approach to implementation. They started with a pilot group of teachers, then extended the rollout once the workflows were tested in real classrooms.
Teachers brought their existing unit plans and classroom contexts into AutoPlanner. The AI suggested structured lesson outlines, activities, and differentiation ideas in minutes instead of hours. Draft was then used to generate clear, warm parent updates based on those same plans.
Implementation timeline
- Weeks 1–2 – Teacher setup and initial training
- Weeks 3–4 – AutoPlanner used for core lesson planning
- Weeks 5–6 – Draft introduced for parent communication
- Weeks 7–8 – Full school rollout and refinement
The Transformation
Lesson planning revolution
Within the first term of using AutoPlanner, teachers reported that the planning process felt lighter and more predictable. Instead of starting from a blank page, they began with high quality AI-generated outlines that they could refine with their own professional judgement.
Parent communication reimagined
Draft made it possible for teachers to send shorter, clearer, and more regular updates to families without spending evenings rewriting emails. Templates ensured a consistent tone across the school while still allowing space for each teacher’s voice.
Measurable results
After two terms, the leadership team compared the new approach with baseline data. They found changes not only in time use but also in student outcomes and parent satisfaction.
Parent engagement improvements
- • Weekly update open rates rose from 52 % to 78 %.
- • School-wide conference attendance increased from 68 % to 95 %.
- • Volunteer sign ups for classroom activities grew by 150 %.
- • Average response time to parent enquiries dropped by 4 days.
"I used to spend my entire Sunday planning for the week. Now I do it in 45 minutes on Friday afternoon, and the lessons are better aligned to standards than anything I created manually."
Marcus Rodriguez
2nd Grade Teacher
Time savings breakdown
| Average weekly time saved per teacher | 15 hours |
| Lesson planning | 10 hours saved |
| Parent communication | 3 hours saved |
| Administrative tasks | 2 hours saved |
What worked well
- • Phased rollout that respected teacher capacity
- • Clear guardrails for responsible AI use
- • Shared templates and comment banks
- • Strong leadership support and communication
Critical success factors
- • Keeping teachers in control of final outputs
- • Using AI to draft, not to decide
- • Aligning AI use with school values and policies
- • Building time for reflection and iteration
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