Leading Educator Wellness: Six Critical Actions to Support All Staff

[00:01] Announcer:

Welcome to Principal Center Radio, helping you build capacity for instructional leadership. Here's your host, Director of the Principal Center, Dr. Justin Bader. Welcome everyone to Principal Center Radio.

[00:13] SPEAKER_01:

I'm your host, Justin Bader, and I'm honored to welcome to the program Aaron Lehman and Bill Barnes. Bill Barnes is the Superintendent of the Howard County Public School System in Maryland, and he served in leadership roles with the Maryland and National Council of Teachers of Mathematics and has won a number of state and National Teaching Awards. Bill holds a Master of Science in Mathematics and Science Education from Johns Hopkins University and has served as an adjunct professor for Johns Hopkins, the University of Maryland Baltimore County, McDaniel College, and Towson University. Dr. Erin Lehman is an associate professor for the University of South Dakota. She has experience as an elementary principal at a Title I school, as well as being a math teacher, math coach, and curriculum specialist.

[00:52]

Dr. Lehman is the author or co-author of several books, including Teaching Mathematics Today. She is a frequent speaker at national conferences advocating for mathematics and grading practices. She holds an Ed.D. in educational leadership from the University of South Dakota.

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And they are the authors of Leading Educator Wellness, Six Critical Actions to Support All Staff.

[01:13] Announcer:

And now, our feature presentation.

[01:16] SPEAKER_01:

Erin and Bill, welcome to Principal Center Radio. Thank you for having us. Thanks for having us. Let's start by talking about what need you saw in the field. We are aware, I think as a profession now, that wellness is a challenge, that some people are not doing well, and that schools have a role to play and leaders have a role to play. What specifically were you seeing that you responded to by writing this book?

[01:39] SPEAKER_02:

Just for context, we started noticing indicators of sort of poor wellness prior to COVID, but certainly COVID accelerated all of those indicators. We were seeing at the district level increased rates of absenteeism, increased expenses with our health care systems. And of course, as we went out and visited schools, we were hearing the stories of teachers, principals, assistant principals and staff of increased workload, challenges with balancing work life. And again, as I said, it's something we were grappling with, we're thinking about. It isn't typically something we take head on in education. You know, even though we have human resources systems, it's sort of just this third rail.

[02:17]

And then after COVID, it's something we couldn't ignore. We started to see challenges with staff retention. We saw a lot of people retire right at the earliest possible sort of benefited time, 30 years. And right now, if we don't address our employees' wellness, our own wellness, it's going to be a critical risk for our district. How about you, Aaron?

[02:36] SPEAKER_00:

And then one of the things that I'd like to add is like, we also read a book, Triage Your School by Christopher Jensen. And one of the main pieces that he talked about really was like these poorly designed operations. They really create that persistent, that work-related stress, and that can lead to burnout. And so with everything that Bill had mentioned and said, and then reading that, we're like, we can do and maybe write something about this. So that is really the why behind what we wrote about.

[03:04] SPEAKER_01:

I'm very interested in the opportunity that's out there for organizations, for schools and districts, because I feel like there are some edge cases where the idea of wellness gets to be kind of untenable, right? Like if a school is just so dysfunctional that no one could be well in it, then self-care tips are kind of not what's called for. And on the other hand, sometimes people are just going through things in their personal lives that no strategies are going to get them through, and that's going to just inevitably present challenges in the workplace. But there is this zone of opportunity here. There are things that schools and districts can do. How do you view that opportunity for organizations?

[03:43]

What is possible within the bounds of what we're able to do as organizations?

[03:48] SPEAKER_00:

I think one of the biggest things that when Bill and I actually wrote this book was to not add another layer of the work that school leaders and district leaders are already doing, but embed. And so that's why we created the plan that we have that really aligns to the chapters because we really want to say it's too much work to keep adding on to these educators' plates without ever taking anything off. So how can we embed wellness into the work that these leaders are doing to take care of those people who are really taking care of the students. So by aligning this work to like their school improvement plan, so it is mathematics, it's literacy, it's attendance, and how can we really envelope these together so we can focus on all?

[04:35] SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. And Jess, you said something interesting. Another indicator was starting to become apparent is when we would talk to teachers or really inquire about their well-being, we would, you know, obviously fall into a routine of saying, listen, make sure you take care of yourself, practice self-care. We started to get dirty looks back. People really started to become an offensive statement. And so the question really became, OK, we've got to take this seriously.

[04:58]

But how do we do so in such a way that's not episodic? Right now in our district, it's a little bit episodic. We have a couple built-in half-day wellness days, which are sort of take the half-day, do what you need for you. Sometimes schools have spa days, spa week, teacher appreciation week. But it's not working at the root cause. Like, we're still seeing people reporting that they don't feel like they're well.

[05:18]

I think we got to name it. It's a very personal individual's wellness has become a very personal thing. And we're trying to get that to cross over a little bit by putting systems in place that leaders can work with their staff on to kind of identify, like, what does it mean for our school to be well? And what is it going to take? For us to achieve that in whether it's our overall physical wellness, because teaching and leading is a very demanding, physically demanding sort of sport, if you will, but also emotional, social, sort of the mental wellness dimensions. So yeah, really try to tackle it systemically rather than just episodically.

[05:54] SPEAKER_01:

And what are some of those dimensions that you guide school leaders to think through? Because certainly, as we said, there are things that are kind of outside of our control. There are things that need to be functional within the school for the people within it to be well. Take us through some of the factors that we have some influence on. And you also talk in the book about performing a needs assessment. So take us into some of that.

[06:17] SPEAKER_00:

I'll get into the first part and let Bill really get into the needs assessment because I loved what you asked with, I would say chapter one, we did not know where that really belonged. And that was like the wellness of the leader. It's really hard to lead wellness work if you're really not... Being reflective about your own wellness.

[06:36]

So that is the first chapter. So as a leader, how can you prioritize your own wellness in the sense of physical, mental, emotional, and then really adopting that social piece? And that's off of Tim Kainold and Tina Bugren's work off of their book, Educator Wellness. And we just...

[06:53]

took their framework and we adapted it, a model that gave examples of what this could look like and should look like with those school and those district leaders, because we know that if they're not taking care of themselves, it's really hard to lead and buy into this work that needs to be done.

[07:11] SPEAKER_02:

So the thing we liked about Tim and Tina's book was it created an elegant container. It started to create some common language around how we might deconstruct wellness and how we can talk about it. And so we built a needs assessment around that after working with them and talking about what that might look like. Because our question then was, how do you take this to scale? And they asked it right back of us. How would you take it to scale?

[07:33]

And that sort of was the, you know, sort of initiated our work. The needs assessment really gives is a tool that school leaders can use with staff to really just kind of assess well-being at the school or district level in each of those dimensions. We ask both broad questions like how well is your school? It's an intentionally vague question because we want to get the conversation going. And we want this to be sort of a real authentic experience, something that school leaders are not doing to their staff, but doing with their staff. I don't necessarily feel qualified to lead a great wellness program in my district.

[08:07]

So I need to really capitalize on our local resources and those on our staff who might have that expertise. And whether it's we're talking about movement. our movement habits, our sleep habits, our food habits, or we're thinking about our social engagement or our mindfulness. We just really want people to become familiar with that language. And then along the way with that journey through that needs assessment, kind of begin to unpack some of the root causes for why a school or district may not be well. And that's the easy part is naming it.

[08:37]

People can name all the things that are getting in the way of their happiness or their wellness, which is different things. But then we use that tool as a common language building tool.

[08:47] SPEAKER_00:

And so I think the other thing that Bill's saying too is like, we wanted to look at this from almost a systemic level. So how can we look at the system as a whole and not make these decisions based upon one person's thoughts and opinions, but really gather that data, the qualitative, the quantitative data from the people that are doing the work. And so that was the other thing that we really wanted to capitalize on is It's not just the thoughts and opinions. It is truly getting those different perspectives from the different people that work in that organization.

[09:20] SPEAKER_01:

Great to start with that needs assessment. And then you also talk about doing a root cause analysis and then presumably from there getting into some action steps. Take us into some of what that can look like to do a root cause analysis and then to take some steps to improve wellness.

[09:36] SPEAKER_02:

So we encourage leaders right out of the gate to figure out who their champions are going to be, who their team members at the school or district level. We call it a wellness team, you know, and we give some recommendations about who that might be in your school or in your neighborhood. And then that root cause analysis really is a natural follow on to what is revealed through the needs assessment process. And it's meant to be, you know, down and dirty. It's meant to be revealing of some spaces that may be uncomfortable. And it's meant to be captured and recorded so that presumably when we get into this next phase of setting goals or identifying strategies to improve our wellness, we can use as a benchmark as things to kind of address as we go through.

[10:16] SPEAKER_00:

Which segues beautifully into that goal setting and action planning and really taking the time to say, all right, if this is what these causes, what can we do? Because that was the other thing that Bill and I, when we started writing this, that it's not going to be a one size fits all approach. And so being very thoughtful about what maybe ideas that we could present in terms of it's almost that multi-tiered system of support for educators that we do for our students. And so how can we take the same type of concept saying, yes, we've got this tier one of support for all of our educators. Now, what would it look like maybe with a tier two and a tier three? And how can we structure and offer this?

[10:56]

And so really diving into and being open about it's going to look different from school to school, from program to program, from district to district, because like you said, sometimes the systems are broken. And so if we can just really get down to that root cause and start really working on that wellness piece, we might be able to focus on the wellness of the school with everybody who's there.

[11:20] SPEAKER_01:

You know, any kind of presentation on wellness can seem like a slap in the face if people feel like there are organizational conditions that are the problem. And often those organization conditions are just hard to change.

[11:34] SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, I think what's really important, it's really important to emphasize to staff, if we intend to be credible and we do, that we see and recognize concerns. And we have concerns and we share concerns related to the overall well-being. We want to do our absolute goal and mission is to do well by our students, make sure they graduate with their dreams intact. But we do have to ask at what cost. And it can't be at the overall expense of educators. We are naturally wired to want to be everything for everybody else.

[12:09]

And when that starts to look like martyrdom or frustration or burnout, we want to interrupt that. So I think one of the... The first things that's been appreciated in my district as we're just getting started is people appreciating that we're naming that things aren't right and that we intend to lift those up. There's no boundaries on the kinds of conversations or feelings that are happening.

[12:28]

That wellness work is intensely personal and is defined differently by everybody. But we're going to get after it and intend to do better and to do better together. So... I think that's the only way this works.

[12:42]

If it comes off, you know, like any other professional learning experience, it's going to feel like what it would be, which is forced. And we cannot be forced if we intend to be authentic and we do.

[12:53] SPEAKER_00:

Going off of what Bill said, and I think that was where we almost got hung up too, was really what does that professional learning look like? Because Justin, you know, you've been a leader, you've been in those roles, but there are areas that we have an expertise at. We may see this system, but we may not know what this professional learning looks like and sounds like. And so I think at the beginning of the book, when we said it is not a solo act, it is truly from this team and finding the smartest people to help you be successful and finding the right people to follow through with this work, that that matters. And so that's another piece that we would really like to emphasize is that we want to make it doable, realistic for the people that are in the schools, because it's a complex job. And it doesn't have a great reputation right now.

[13:42]

And it's a political battleground. And so how can we take care of the people who are taking care of the students, which we don't want it to feel like, oh, this is just one more thing.

[13:52] SPEAKER_01:

And what we're talking about is a bit of a cultural shift in the profession, right? It was not too long ago that school leaders would say, whatever it takes for students and not have any asterisk on that at all and really mean whatever it takes. And Bill, to your point just a minute ago, we're realizing now that that can't actually be the way we approach the work. It can't be whatever it takes because we do have limitations as people. And yeah, if we're asking people to be martyrs as part of whatever it takes, it's That's not going to get us to where we need to be.

[14:23] SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, I think that's exactly right. If you're a dysregulated adult, you're going to have time helping and supporting a dysregulated child. And that elegantly extends out to leadership. If you're a dysregulated leader, you're going to have a very difficult time supporting dysregulated adults or children in your building. We've gotten some traction. Our district has been in and out of wellness initiatives over time.

[14:48]

We might have some incentives associated with our healthcare systems and pedometers or wellness days or, you know, different chair massage day, whatever. But when I assumed the role of superintendent, I started to pay attention to those staff that seemed to gain energy from doing the work. Now we have a wellness representative in every building and every division office. And we're using that as our sort of starting point, our wellness team. They come together. I'll be with a group of those folks tomorrow just to kick off, give them sort of my own commitment to the work.

[15:20]

And they're starting to generate lots and lots of good ideas. And they're also, it's giving us an opportunity to grow them as system thinkers, system leaders. Because many of them are not in leadership roles right now in that capacity. And all of them are wondering whether or not this is going to be worth their time because this is not yet a stipended position. We haven't put our money where our mouth is yet. And that's going to be a next logical step that I want from them is what kind of infrastructure is it going to take without pulling resources or dragging resources away from school buildings?

[15:49]

But what kind of infrastructure is it going to take to get this done right?

[15:52] SPEAKER_00:

And I think, Justin, you brought up a good point, too. Whatever it takes, because, and I said that I have been on this soapbox, I'm not going to lie, for a long time. And it's been an unpopular opinion, it feels like, until recently. But it's like, I'll do whatever I can for students. I'll do whatever it takes for students. And students, students, students have been the priority.

[16:11]

This is our outcome. This is why we're at school. But if we are not taking care of the teachers that are in front of these students, we have a broken system. And we have people who want to leave. And so what can we do to take care of the people who are in front of the students? Yes, we know.

[16:28]

We know the students matter so much. But if we are not taking care of the people who actually work for us to make them better and feel, we just don't want them to burn out. We do not want this added burden or stress because we need their brilliance because teachers are not applying or like they were in these school bed schools anymore and the teacher residency. It's just The numbers are going down. And so how can we create an environment so people don't leave us?

[16:56] SPEAKER_01:

And to Bill's point just a minute ago, this may cost money, right? This is not necessarily going to be a free thing. And certainly turnover is not without costs. Hiring new people, training new people, all of that costs money. What are some of the investments that people are making to put some of these systems in place in their districts? We talked about stipends briefly.

[17:19]

What is it that does cost money that's worth investing in?

[17:22] SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, I think time and honoring people's time, either through stipends or through time to plan together, to learn together. We're trying something new this year. I worked hard with the Board of Education, the calendar committee in our district to carve out more time for professional learning. And I couched it as a wellness move because there's a lot of ways to get well. But one way to feel well is to feel successfully in your job and to feel like that your school district or organization is investing in you. And so we recently had...

[17:51]

sort of co-opted 90 minutes of the three hours of the wellness day we had in September. And I held my breath because I was like, who's going to come to this? Because it's a relatively last minute change, like four weeks ahead of time. And we had, you know, about 87% of the people showed up and engaged in some professional learning that was really targeted, focused on district priorities and not focused on wellness yet. So that was a sign. People have been telling me that they want to be intellectually fed too.

[18:15]

So we're going to try to find a balance. So I think some of that investment in time and training in the learning, it's just we can't do it all and we certainly can't add on top. So we're going to have to just pay for some time and people.

[18:27] SPEAKER_00:

And Bill, I'm going to build off of that. I do a lot of work with Solution Tree in terms of mathematics, and it seems like everybody needs some mathematics support. However, when Wellness came out with Tim and Tina, I had only a few jobs. But now I will say that there are districts across the country who want this support, who know that this matters. And now I'm getting a lot more opportunities to work with schools and districts to really hone in on what does this wellness look like within your own school or your own district so we can create something that is sustainable. So that ask has been actually on the uptick and I don't see it changing anytime soon.

[19:09] SPEAKER_01:

I know you've got quite a few resources in the book to help people take action. You've got quite a few tools in the appendix. And if people want to get in touch with you to talk about working together, what's the best way for them to do that?

[19:22] SPEAKER_00:

Through Solution Tree, Bill and my name is right there under the wellness tab. And so if you would like to talk more about, and we say within wellness or leading wellness, both matter. So that is where you can contact either of us.

[19:36] SPEAKER_01:

So the book is Leading Educator Wellness, Six Critical Actions to Support All Staff. Aaron Lehman and Bill Barnes, thank you so much for joining me on Principal Center Radio. It's been a pleasure.

[19:46] SPEAKER_02:

Really appreciate the opportunity. Yes.

[19:49] Announcer:

Thanks for listening to Principal Center Radio. For more great episodes, subscribe on our website at principalcenter.com slash radio.