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Dr. Michael Gaskell, a principal in East Brunswick, New Jersey, wrote a piece for Tech & Learning that I found insightful. He described turning a dry district memo (chuckling at the callout of an antidote to insomnia) into a faculty presentation in under ten minutes . I was appreciative of his approach at saving time while insisting on making sure his own voice is central in what his staff actually reads. 

This came up in my post last week in a comment. Someone called out that while acknowledging concerns with a response is important, an entirely automated one (with AI) still runs the risk of making the audience feel unheard. I believe teachers can tell when a message came from their principal and when it came from a copy/paste automation alone. 

RAND's 2026 State of the American Teacher Survey puts the share of teachers who intend to leave their jobs at 18% — lower than in recent years — while RAND separately reports that teachers' stress and burnout continue to outpace those of other working adults. Read those together: more people are staying, and they are still worn down. Worn-down people are unusually sensitive to being communicated at rather than communicated with.

Sources:

https://www.techlearning.com/technology/ai/a-day-in-the-life-of-a-principal-using-ai

https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RRA4404-2.html

https://www.rand.org/news/press/2026/06/teachers-stress-burnout-continue-to-outpace-those-of.html

➡️ When you use AI to draft something for staff, how do you know it still sounds like you? Is there something you always look for and change?

THIS WEEK'S RESOURCE: Custom instructions for Gemini in Google Workspace, now in more apps   

Announcement (Sept 2, 2026)

Click here for Step-by-step help doc

Custom instructions let you tell Gemini once how you want it to write — your tone, your length, your formatting habits — and it applies that every time, instead of you re-explaining yourself in every prompt. This used to be Docs-only. As of the September 2 rollout it also works in the Gemini side panel in Gmail, Sheets, and Slides, plus Ask Gemini in Drive and Ask Gemini in Chat. Instructions are shared across those apps, so one you add in Gmail carries into Slides automatically.

To set it up:

1. On a computer, open a Workspace app — Gmail, Docs, Sheets, or Slides.
2. At the top right, select Ask Gemini to open the side panel.
3. At the top left of the panel, select Menu, then Settings, then Personalization.
4. Select Add, type your instruction in plain English, and select Save.
5. In Ask Gemini in Chat only, this lives elsewhere: type /settings in the message box to add an instruction.
6. Repeat step 4 for each rule you want. You can save many separate instructions and toggle them off anytime.

A concrete one to steal, aimed at staff communication:

"When drafting communication to teachers, lead with the ask in the first sentence, keep it under 200 words, and never use the phrases 'just a reminder' or 'as previously communicated.'"

Then draft your next Friday staff memo in Gmail with the side panel and notice how much less you rewrite (to be clear I still advocate for rewrite/edit and adding your own personal voice that AI simply cannot). The same instruction will quietly improve your mentor check-in agendas and your survey summaries too, because it follows you into Docs and Sheets.

One prerequisite: you need a Workspace plan that includes Gemini, and your district admin may need to have Gemini or Ask Gemini turned on for staff accounts. The rollout started September 2, so if you don't see Personalization in your Settings menu yet, it may still be reaching your domain.

Give it a try this week and post the instructions you wrote in the comments. I'd really like to borrow a few, and I suspect the rest of us would too.

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