4 Strategies Administrators Can Deliver to Lessen Teacher Fatigue

K-12 workers have the highest burnout rate of all industries nationally, according to a recent Gallup poll.¹ 44% of K-12 workers report “always” or “very often” feeling burned out due to work, and that percentage rises to 52% when looking at only teacher data.  

Teaching itself is stressful. Nearly half of all new teachers leave the profession within five years due to various factors, including workload, student environment, and perceived lack of support (NEA). Since 2020, additional pain points have exacerbated teacher fatigue, including: 

• Increasing professional development responsibilities
• Managing parent and stakeholder expectations and dissatisfaction  
• Supporting students’ social, academic, and mental health resulting from their disrupted education 

Building a supportive and collaborative professional environment for educators can help to reduce the stress-induced fatigue of the job. Here are four ways administrators can create an environment that helps alleviate teacher burnout.   

Building collaborative professional learning communities (PLCs) means working with teachers to establish meaningful co-teaching relationships. When establishing co-teaching partnerships, it’s important to create a system of professional support that will sustain their work throughout the academic year and beyond. Even the best, most collaboratively minded educators don’t automatically know everything about co-teaching, teaming, or PLCs. It’s essential to provide ongoing, embedded, and immediately applicable professional development.  

Supporting faculty also means asking them what they want to learn and then helping to provide that learning. People are naturally more invested in their learning when they’ve decided for themselves what they’re curious about. The more competent and fulfilled your teachers feel, the greater the chance they will avoid burnout.  

Help teacher teams establish group communication norms. For example, the Ohio Leadership Advisory Council advocates for a five-step process for teacher-based teams (TBT) to follow when they meet:  

1. Collect and chart data to identify how students are performing/progressing 
   What data has been collected by the TBT?  
2. Analyze student work specific to the data
   What does the data reveal about student learning?  
3. Establish shared expectations for implementing specific effective changes in the classroom
   What instructional strategies will be employed in the classroom to address individual student needs?  
4. Implement changes consistently across all classrooms
   What will be observed in the classrooms? What will the teacher be doing? What will the students be doing?  
5. Collect, chart, and analyze pre- and post-data
   What does the post-data look like? What instructional practices proved to be successful?  

By setting clear expectations for communication, team members can begin to intuit their roles within the group.  

It’s also vital to make sure that meetings feel productive and action-oriented. When teachers feel as if they are meeting over and over again without generating meaningful results, they are more likely to be susceptible to burnout. Establishing protocols and expectations helps to counteract this as groups can determine and deliver on goals. It might be helpful to encourage teams to establish SMART goals that help keep the work on track and on time. Seeing action items being met contributes to a sense of purpose and accomplishment.  

Online platforms can greatly enhance professional development among faculty members. Chats on Twitter, Slack, your school’s LMS, and other spaces present opportunities for collaboration that are gaining in popularity and usefulness.  

Collaborative technology helps teachers work and learn from each other asynchronously. Resources, lesson plans, and curriculum frameworks can be shared and discussed outside of traditional planning periods, and professional development can occur at times and places that are convenient for staff. You can model the use of such technology by creating a professional development “course” within your LMS and uploading instructional resources, or replacing traditional staff meetings with video messages, discussion boards, and online surveys. Teachers will appreciate having more say in when and where they work instead of feeling that the system is using up their valuable time.  

Relationships with colleagues, parents, and students are fulfilling, but teachers also experience natural strains and low points throughout the academic year. Teachers engage in dozens of conversations every day that require emotional intelligence. If they are feeling unwell, their responses in those situations may be impacted.  

You can help your faculty maintain good group health by establishing a wellness committee. Led by staff, this group hosts fun, optional activities throughout the year, such as a “walkathon” challenge or a “No Thirst November” that encourages proper hydration. Mental health can be supported too, with activities such as mindful meditation sessions available during lunchtime. These initiatives don’t significantly increase anyone’s workload and help to build a culture that respects wellness and self-care. 

Leadership can help lessen teacher fatigue

Teachers are looking to school and district leaders to help them balance the ever-increasing demands of an already challenging profession. When you model healthy collaboration, clear communication, time-saving strategies, and wellness, you can help protect them from undue stress and build a culture of caring within your schools. 

1. https://news.gallup.com/poll/393500/workers-highest-burnout-rate.aspx