Teacher & Staff Wellness

APPROACH teacher and staff wellness

The AERO Therapeutic Center should provide zones for teacher & staff wellness and destressing. Job-related stress negatively and substantially affects the classroom environment, the teaching-learning process, and the attainment of educational goals and objectives.

Each student brings with them their blueprint, as documented in their Individual Education Plan (IEP), which may include mandates to provide a variety of related services to help support students to progress. Many students have multiple services and classifications and are often years behind academically. This means even one small, self-contained class can have students within a three-year age span, with multiple individual needs, learning at different levels and with different styles. That is a daunting task. (Harnett. 2018)

There are many reasons why educators leave the profession. Safety is a big concern when dealing with behavioral issues. These students have been diagnosed with a behavioral disability; their actions are a manifestation of their disability. Consequently, they cannot be held to the same standard as a regular education student. They can assault you one day, and be back in your class the next, with a big smile on their face. (Lynch,2018) Helping students develop coping strategies are essential to reducing the stress in the classrooms.

Reasonable goal setting and communication are essential to relieving stress. Collaboration and training are important to providing guidance for Teachers. In general, if you show value in your employees in wanting to give them the ability to improve, then student engagement improves. Parental support is also important for teacher engagement. The more alignment between parents and teachers with regards to the student, the better for the student. The continuum of care and setting realistic goals essential to reducing stress.

Architectural Implications

• Giving teachers access to nature and natural views reduces stress. • Access to quiet rooms for teachers to collect their thoughts.

Figure 33

Key Points

• Special educators & facilitators suffer “burnout” at a higher rate than regular teachers – +50% leave the profession within 5 years and 75% leave the profession in 10 years – the average teacher (40% within 5 years).

• Lack of communication is a critical issue – from administration & from parents

• Educators need quiet rooms to de-stress.

• Educators who get more training, have better engagement.

• A discussion of purpose is helpful for re-centering.

• Student expectations can often lead to feelings of failure – set more realistic goals with students.

• Time management can be difficult due to the amount of paperwork and planning. Automation/ Talk to Text technology could be beneficial.

• A feeling of “lack of support from colleagues / supervisors” is a critical factor.

• Day-to-day stress is significantly higher for special education teachers because there are multiple points of potential disruption to monitor. • Para-educators and teachers must have shared goals with students - communication.

• Proactive teamwork strategies lesson the communication gaps that lead to frustration.

• Role-based training can be helpful to having a shared approach to interventions with students so that teamwork can be consistent.

• Emotional Intelligence and self-awareness by the educator are important to be able to better understand how they will react in a given situation.

Figure 34