Educational leaders today are tasked with finding creative ways to operate their districts given the current—and growing—teacher shortage across the United States. One Texas school district board of trustees voted to adopt a four-day school week for the 2022-2023 academic year to incentivize more teachers to apply for jobs.
With continued staffing shortages, teachers and administrators must shoulder more responsibility in an industry that is already undervalued and underpaid. Educators are leaving the profession in staggering numbers, citing anxiety, fear, and sadness among the top reasons they choose to exit their careers early.
“We are now seeing with the amount of tasks they are being given and asks they are being given, along with the pandemic and also the pressure from parents and school boards, staff are at an all-time high-stress level,” Kati Garner, Northwest Regional Training Consultant for the Colorado School Safety Resource Center, told Campus Safety. “I am definitely concerned. I am hearing from districts that I work with, as well as districts throughout Colorado, that their biggest concern right now is not only their students’ mental health but their staff’s mental health. They are hanging on.”
Supporting Garner’s concerns, a 2022 Crisis Communication and Safety in Education Survey found faculty and staff mental health is the third-highest safety concern for K-12 schools.
The Campus Safety Online Summit (CSOS), happening Nov. 30 and Dec. 1, will address dozens of school safety and security topics, including teacher mental health. During the Day 2 keynote, Dr. Kevin Eberle, a retired principal and former chief operations officer at Buffalo Public Schools, and Jill Lemond, former assistant superintendent of safety and school operations at Oxford Community Schools, will unpack this critical issue, asserting that school safety and positive building climate are essential to protecting our teachers — individually and as a workforce.
This candid session, sponsored by Evolv, will explore the raw nuances of teaching and serving as an administrator in schools today and, most importantly, present actionable solutions to protecting staff.
Don’t miss out on this live panel at the CSOS. Use the code KEYNOTE22 at checkout and save your spot for only $79. Register now or preview the schedule.
