Supporting Staff Capacity and Well-Being

Supporting Staff Capacity and Well-Being

To support students socially, emotionally, and behaviorally, staff in schools and districts must also be supported. Particularly when serving students who engage in interfering behavior, staff stress and burnout can present significant barriers to wellness and the joy of teaching. Effective school and district leaders recognize the interconnected nature of student and staff well-being, and understand that all staff must be equipped to prevent and respond to student interfering behavior using trauma-informed and equitable practices.

Professional Development Implementation Planning

Organizing student supports within an MTSS framework requires team-driven shared leadership to build staff capacity and make district and building implementation plans sustainable. To ensure the systems and resources outlined throughout this manual are consistently put into practice within buildings and classrooms, they must be accompanied by supporting leadership practices such as sustained professional development opportunities at all levels. This will help establish the infrastructure necessary to build relevant knowledge and skills and to help staff be successful in consistently supporting student needs.

Principals are required to confer with certificated employees to establish criteria for determining when certificated employees must complete classes to improve classroom management skills.55  Nondisciplinary evidence-based interventions and systems of support include: 

  • Cultural Competency, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (CCDEI) standards for educators56  
  • Teacher knowledge, skill, and performance standards including social-emotional learning57
  • Teacher and Principal Evaluation and Growth Program (TPEP) criteria, including instructional skill, classroom management, handling of student discipline, and fostering a safe and positive learning environment58 

RREI Demonstration Site Finding: Mindset Work is Non-Negotiable

Each and every demonstration site has reported the critical importance of providing staff with professional development (aligned with transformational leadership) that affirms the belonging of students with interfering behaviors in all schools and classrooms. Specifically, demonstration sites have identified the importance of what is broadly referred to as “mindset work” to ensure all staff feel empowered with the tools to positively support students who engage in interfering behavior and see these students as “our students” rather than “someone else’s students.”  To do this, sites have shared that the following areas of professional development have been instrumental:

  • Understanding interfering behavior as communication of a need
  • Shifting from a focus on student compliance (which centers the adult voice as what must be honored) to actively supporting students to build skills to resolve problems and conflict (which centers the student’s voice as they learn problem-solving skills) 
  • Trauma-informed practices, social-emotional learning, inclusion and belonging, and strategies to build rapport and relationship with students addressed in professional development with all staff
  • Incorporating social-emotional instruction and strategies into universal practices for all staff, with the understanding that students equipped with these skills will be more engaged in learning
  • Strategies for maintaining connection during behavioral escalations, such as co-regulation, problem-solving conversations, or offering break spaces within each classroom 
  • Understanding implicit and explicit bias
  • Reviewing school and/or district data patterns of disproportionality in use of discipline, restraint, and isolation, and engaging in reflective conversations about root causes and needed changes to ensure more equitable student support

Supporting Educator Well-Being

For school staff, the important work of supporting students who have experienced trauma carries a risk of secondary traumatic stress (STS). Also called compassion fatigue, STS is “the emotional distress that arises when someone vicariously experiences the traumatic experiences of another.”59 Staff in education and other helping professions are more likely to experience STS than others. 

When staff experience STS, both staff and students can be negatively impacted. Indicators of STS in school staff may include increased anxiety about safety, feelings of detachment from students, feelings of hopelessness about students and work, and difficulty with decision-making. Experiencing STS can cause staff to feel increased hypervigilance, cynicism, difficulty extending empathy, and an internal sense of professional inadequacy. It can also lead staff to rely more heavily on punitive and/or exclusionary discipline with students.60 

Substitute House Bill 1363 (2021–22)61  addressed STS in public education. It established minimum requirements for districts to establish policy and procedures regarding workplace mental health, stress management, and support. See the Workforce Secondary Traumatic Stress Compliance Checklist on OSPI’s Workforce Secondary Traumatic Stress webpage for more information.

What Are the Indicators of Secondary Traumatic Stress in a School or District?

The National Center on Safe Supportive Learning Environments (NCSSLE) provides guidance on warning signs that a school system is impacted by trauma.62   The following school and district indicators were adapted from this guidance:

  • School environment has a negative atmosphere
  • School environment often feels chaotic, disorganized, and unpredictable
  • People at the school feel a lack of emotional and/or physical safety
  • School staff collectively tend to be cynical, negative, and/or sarcastic about students
  • Frequent use of harsh and punitive discipline practices by school staff to regain control
  • School staff have less energy or motivation to provide students with additional support
  • Lack of communication and/or frequent miscommunication among school staff
  • Increasing interpersonal conflicts between school staff in different roles or departments 
  • School staff are often fearful of their own safety
  • High rate of staff absenteeism and/or problems with work completion/quality
  • High rate of staff turnover
  • Student and family complaints about the school have increased 

When school and district leaders believe STS is a concern at the classroom, school, or district level, they should take steps to address it. NCSSLE recommends this process involves seeking feedback, providing opportunities for shared decision-making that includes staff and families, and building strong staff connections that include both supervision and peer support. If student behavior is identified as a concern, leaders may also wish to evaluate their tiered school and district systems to ensure that students who have more complex social, emotional, and behavioral needs are equitably supported by robust and well-prepared teams (rather than one or two individual staff). See Section 2 for more information on specific improvements districts can consider.

Resources for Supporting Educator Well-Being

55 RCW 28A.400.110.

56 RCW 28A.410.260.

57 RCW 28A.410.270(1)(c).

58 RCW 28A.405.100.

59 OSPI (n.d.). Workforce secondary traumatic stress.

60 National Center for Safe Supportive Learning (2018). Building trauma-sensitive schools handout packet.

61 Washington State Legislature - HB 1363 - 2021-22

62 NCSSLE (2018). Building trauma-sensitive schools handout packet.