Side Hustles for Teachers During the School Year and Summer

Side hustles for teachers are paid work that fits around the school calendar, such as tutoring, selling classroom resources, teaching online classes and summer camp or freelance work. The best side hustles for teachers use skills you already have without breaking your district's outside employment rules or eating the evenings you need for planning and grading.

Below we split options into school-year and summer work, compare real platform fees as of 2026, and cover the policy checks that matter for public employees. If you want to compare side hustles beyond teaching first, our side hustle ideas guide starts with fit before platforms.

What rules apply to teachers with a side hustle?

Your district's outside employment and conflict-of-interest policies come first. Teachers are often public employees, so state ethics rules may apply on top of your contract.

The common restrictions are:

• Paid tutoring of your own students. Many districts ban it. A Florida Commission on Ethics opinion, for example, found no conflict in teachers tutoring other students at their school, noting that they remained barred from tutoring students in their own classes.
• Using school resources. Private work on district time, laptops, email, copiers or classrooms is usually prohibited.
• Soliciting families. Some policies bar you from marketing private services to your students' parents.
• Ownership of materials. Materials created for the district, on district time or with district tools may belong to the district. Check your contract and board policy before you sell anything you made for class.

Search your board policy manual for "outside employment," "conflict of interest" or "tutoring," and ask HR in writing if the rules are unclear. Our article on side hustle mistakes explains why ignoring an employment contract is one of the costliest errors in any job.

Side hustles for teachers at a glance

Some options fit the school year; others only make sense in summer. Fees below are from each platform's own pages as of 2026.

School-year side hustles that fit around teaching

During the school year, pick work with small, predictable time blocks. Evenings are already full of planning and grading, so a few hours a week is realistic for most teachers.

Tutoring

Tutoring uses your subject knowledge and classroom skills directly, and families often look for it in the evenings and before tests. Finding clients yourself avoids platform fees, but check who you can take on under your district's rules. On Wyzant, tutors keep 75% of their posted hourly rate and Wyzant keeps a 25% platform fee.

Teaching online classes on Outschool

Outschool lets you design and teach small online classes for kids on topics you choose. Outschool's policy says it takes a 30% teacher fee, so you receive 70% of the class price, paid through PayPal in US dollars. Payment timing depends on the class type; for classes paid upfront, it's 7 to 8 days after the class starts.

Freelance curriculum writing and editing

Education publishers, edtech companies and tutoring businesses hire teachers to write or review materials. This is deadline-based work that suits predictable evenings. Build a small portfolio of samples you created on your own time so there's no question about who owns them.

Can teachers make money on Teachers Pay Teachers?

Yes, some do, but most stores start slowly and the marketplace is crowded. TPT keeps a share of every sale, and the right plan depends on how much you sell.

As of 2026, TPT's seller fees are:

• Basic seller: one-time, non-refundable $29 fee; you earn 55% of each sale; 30 cents transaction fee per resource.
• Premium seller: $59.95 a year; you earn 80% of each sale; 15 cents per resource, only on orders totaling less than $3.

Example (hypothetical): you sell a $5 resource in a single order. As a Basic seller you'd keep $2.75 minus 30 cents, or $2.45. As a Premium seller you'd keep $4.00, with no transaction fee because the order is over $3. That's $1.55 more per sale, so the $59.95 yearly fee pays for itself after roughly 39 sales a year at that price. Below that volume, Basic keeps more.

What tends to help: a narrow focus such as one grade and subject, resources you've actually used and improved, clear previews, and a few products at a time rather than dozens of rushed ones. Our guide to side hustles from home covers printables and templates more broadly, including why a narrow niche usually beats generic designs.

Summer side hustles for teachers

Summer is when bigger commitments become realistic. Treat it as your build season for anything slow to start and your earning season for seasonal jobs.

Camps, summer school and enrichment

Summer camps, district summer school and enrichment programs hire teachers because of their classroom experience. These are usually employee roles with set hours, so taxes are withheld and there's no client hunting.

Tutoring intensives and test prep

Summer is a common time for catch-up tutoring and test preparation before the next school year. Packages of several sessions over a few weeks are easier to sell and schedule than scattered one-off sessions.

Building your resource store or online classes

If you want to try TPT or Outschool, summer is the time to create and test your first products or classes, so the school year is only about light updates.

Scoring and reviewing work

Testing organizations, education publishers and some state agencies recruit teachers to score written responses, review test questions or check materials for accuracy. These roles are often seasonal and remote, with set training and quality checks before you're paid for real work. Requirements, such as a teaching license, a degree in the subject or recent classroom experience, and pay vary by employer, so read each posting carefully and avoid any that charge you for the training or the application.

Non-teaching work

Some teachers want a complete break from education. Pet sitting and house sitting, for example, see demand when families travel. Rover applies a 20% service fee per booking, so you keep 80% of your listed rate, though it notes some US users may be in a pilot with different fees.

How much time should a teacher spend on a side hustle?

Less than you'd like during the school year. Teaching already runs past contract hours, and a side hustle that cuts into sleep or planning shows up in your classroom.

Set a weekly limit before the year starts, protect report card and testing weeks, and use school breaks for bigger pushes. A realistic pattern for many teachers is one or two fixed evening slots, for example two tutoring sessions a week, plus one weekend block for product work, with everything paused during conferences and exam weeks.

Track your hours alongside what you earn for the first month. If the side hustle pays well per hour but leaves you behind on grading, it's costing you more than the numbers show. Our guide to side hustles for busy people matches options to the shape of your free time, which is useful when your evenings are unpredictable.

Do teachers pay taxes on side hustle income?

Yes. Your district withholds tax from your salary, but side hustle income usually has nothing withheld. The IRS says gig and side income must be reported even if you don't receive a Form 1099-K, 1099-NEC or other income statement.

Self-employment tax of 15.3% generally applies once your net self-employment earnings reach $400 in a year. Many teachers set aside a share of every side payment in a separate account; a tax professional can help you estimate the right amount and whether quarterly estimated payments make sense for you.

Next steps

Read your district's outside employment policy, pick one school-year option and one summer option, and review your results at the end of each season. When you're ready to compare ideas beyond teaching, our step-by-step side hustles guide helps you choose, test and track one, and our guide to making money online covers the wider options.