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Hi My name is Gina Watts and co -hosting this podcast with me is my buddy, the one, the only, Andrew McPeak. How you doing? Doing great. Pumped to be here. Me too. Friends, if you believe that school should be more than just essays and GPAs, if you believe that EQs are as important as IQs, if you expect amazing things from the next generation, then you are in the right place. Because we believe that too.

Gina, that gets me fired up every time. It is catchy. I love it. I'm proud of us for Well, I'm just a big believer in starting with why. This is why we're here. it's, I just love it. Woo. It's good. It's good. Well, we have an important topic to get to today. But before we do that, we always have a kickoff question. So here it is. If you could design your perfect day from start to finish, what would it include?

Okay, I had just a couple of things I wrote down, this question was coming. So, a couple of Andrew's preferences. Number one, I love waking up in the morning, cup of coffee in hand, and watching a movie. Are you a morning movie person? I'm an anytime movie person. Well, Saturday morning movie to me is awesome. So, I'd love to do that. Then I would make a late brunch. Love brunch. Okay. Breakfast food.

is where it's at. Then I would probably like ideally walk to a coffee shop. Okay. And like enjoy probably with a friend that would be fun too. There's a lot of coffee happening here. Yeah. I have like six cups of coffee a day so that would be a necessity. And that might have been a slight exaggeration but not by much. And then I love trying new restaurants so that would probably be what I'd want to do in the evening is.

go to some restaurant I hadn't tried before. Okay, can I ask a question? Yeah. What's your favorite cuisine? I really do genuinely love all cuisines, but number one, I think, is Thai food. I love Thai food. It's why we're friends. Might be why we're friends. One of the many reasons. Yeah, one of the many reasons. All right, Gina, your perfect day. So, I really, truthfully, is doing nothing.

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It's probably are you in PJs all day? I'm in PJs. I'm asleep in a very fluffy bed nice and Nobody needs me for anything Yeah, but if you need anything somebody has somebody can bring it to you. Maybe a bell. Okay, maybe I'm like Ring ring ring like Door dash is your best friend on this day No, but you know I I think Life is about harmony

and about like healthy rhythms and one of the things that I think I value is when there's space and time to just be still that I kind of go all in on it. I love that. It's not often. Yeah, but you recognizing like if I get an opportunity to refill my tank, I know this is how I do it. So Love that. Yeah, it's so fun. I feel like that's by the way if you're listening to this go ask somebody who you want to get to know better that question because

I feel like it was very revealing for both of us about more about us and who we are. Whenever I hear somebody talk about their perfect day, I think, if only we could live that every day, but these are ideals, not realities. And sadly, many of us are having nowhere near our perfect day, anything close to our perfect day. And I know you and I get to go inside and outside of schools all the time. And it feels especially like when I'm in schools.

I'm hearing about people not having, not only not having their perfect day, but actually having hard day after hard day after hard day after hard day. And that's why our topic today is about teacher burnout. Yeah, you know, I've seen it far too often. Teachers experiencing various levels of burnout. You know, it's affecting folks from all types of traditional and less traditional educational spaces from

From my experience, personally, as a faculty member in higher ed to supervising teachers in early childhood centers, to coaching leaders in out of school time spaces, to leaning in and supporting homeschool co -ops and hybrid program educators, I have personally, up close, witnessed how real burnout is for educators.

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At our organization, we are dedicated to supporting educators in every aspect of their professional journey. is impossible for any school to accomplish its mission if its teachers are not rested and equipped for the challenge. Like me, many of my colleagues here at Growing Leaders are former teachers. So we understand the unique challenges and triumphs that define the teaching profession, especially burnout.

And my guess is that everybody listening to this, you and I included, when we hear the word burnout, our minds go to moments. Hopefully it's a moment a long time ago, but somebody might be remembering a moment two months ago, you know. I know for me personally, I go back to one of my pivotal moments was in 2017. I was asked to take on a new massive role at work, and it was a brand new position that had not existed before.

And so I was put in charge of this new area. And what I didn't realize is everybody who I was working with had a different idea of what my new area was going to be responsible for. And of course, each and every one of them, the idea they had was that I would be taking on this segment of what they were currently doing. So everybody gets all excited. Great, I get to take this 15 % of what's taken up my week and give it to Andrew.

and so many different people did that, that I literally went from first day to about 10 days later, absolutely swamped with work. And you know this, if you've ever onboarded into any new role, you should not be having, like going from nothing to a full -time schedule in 10 days, right? But that's exactly what happened to me. And I viewed it personally as like, if this is what they say my job is, then I guess that's what my job is. I learned a very valuable lesson about that at the time.

And I ended up on a early, early, early Sunday morning waking up not being able to breathe correctly and my heart was rushing and I was like, what is going on? Went to the hospital later that day and thinking that there was literally something physically wrong with me and it was actually my body physically reacting to the stress I was having my first experience with a panic attack.

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and which going to the ER is a very expensive way to learn you're having a panic attack by the way. I learned that lesson too. But that was just a reminder to me of a recognition that if I don't do something about the burnout, I was experiencing the stress, I was experiencing that my body would eventually have me pay the price for it and so that I needed to be more proactive about dealing with it. But...

Yeah, I don't know if you want to share something too. you know, as we were preparing to talk about this, I was thinking of something very similar. And I just so know what you mean about allowing our body to reach its limits and even taking it farther than its limits and it sounding the alarms and telling us, I need you to chill for a second. And so as a young profession,

As a young professional, I was very, very eager to learn. I was very eager to lean in. I wanted to do my job well. And I think I, in reflection, I think I demonstrated my eagerness by really never saying no to anything. That happens a lot. Yeah, I just didn't know that was a sentence.

And so I was working full -time in higher ed and was often asked to take on new tasks and For others around me. It was funny because they perceived it as like I was the favorite child But when in reality it was more like Gina won't say no. She'll do a decent job at worst. She'll most likely create a great experience or an amazing product. Yeah, and

So go ask her. that's what Jeanne and it would not be your problem That's what was happening. And so about every six months, genuinely every six months, I was asked to take on more. And at this particular point that I'm referring to in my career, it was about the midpoint of my tenure and I was teaching full time. So I was doing four to five preps per term. So that for folks that don't know a lot about higher ed, that means like four to five different classes I was teaching.

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per semester. And they were different classes. They weren't, you know, the same classes. And then I was leading the Career Services Department, which included service learning and academic internships for six degree programs. I was coordinating a tutoring center. And then they were like, also, can you create a festival for the community from scratch? And Andrew's giggling, but I know it's like, people are like, what?

a festival, like how is that even connected to your job? It wasn't, it wasn't, it wasn't, just in case you were wondering. And then outside of my job, I was raising my son, so I was a single mom at the time. I was serving on several local community boards. I was leading a grassroots community group that addressed neighborhood blight and crime through revitalization efforts. And I was working part time at Bath and Body Works, I know.

Gina, were teaching in higher ed and working at Bath and Body Works. We don't have time to talk about it right now. Just let it go. And then I was also writing... The discounts must have been really good. They were. And it paid for Christmas. And then, you know, and then I was writing articles for my local newspaper and I just, that was the pace of my life at the time. And so even though like I far exceeded all of my goals for the year, attended all of my son's events and didn't miss any community meetings,

and hosted a really awesome festival for the community in September. And I didn't do any of that alone. Let me say that too. This is nothing that I've ever done has been on my own. But by November, I was in the hospital having my first surgery for an autoimmune disease in that December. And so it's like, you know,

I'm in the hospital, they're trying to figure out what's wrong with me, and they explain that the source of this sudden illness and the associated symptoms are stress. They told you that. That's it. They're like, it's stress. We can't give you medicine. It's stress. You have to get the thing removed and all the things, but it's stress. And you'd think I'd learned my lesson at major surgery. Nah. Had to have it again.

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The next year. You must have a slightly hard head over there. Take some time to sink things to sink in. Slightly, slightly. So it really clicked that second time though. And I know we have folks in our audience who are listening and somewhere, some of our story, maybe not all of it, maybe you even experience things even much harder, but like, it's resonating with you that

you're on the verge of or have experienced or currently going through some level of burnout. Yeah, I think this is a common story. In fact, the more conversations I'm having about it, the more I've become convinced of that. And it's why we're talking about this today. You might think, this is the School on a Mission podcast. Why in the world are we taking time to talk about teacher burnout? it's because we recognize, especially with our theme Beyond the Classroom, is that

you cannot have teachers do well in the classroom if they're not being taken care of, both by themselves and by their leaders outside of the classroom. And that's why this is such an important topic. I think this is a very, very familiar story that probably a lot of people listening to this are realizing. That's so true, Andrew. If, as an educator, you're feeling burnt out, I think you're in good company, or I guess that makes it bad company, doesn't it? So we want to give you a few statistics on burnout.

and educational challenges for schools specifically in this year 2024. As you're listening to this, you might be tempted to lose a little hope, but we don't want you to do that. So we're gonna talk about some solutions before we're done with this episode. Since we're going to dive into the stats, we need to bring in our statistical expert. So put on your nerd glasses and please welcome our friend Patrick Irwin for a segment we like to call the Data Dive.

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Hey everyone, it's Patrick and I'm excited to be here and share this deep dive into what's going on with educators and burnout today. It's a big issue. Since the pandemic, teacher burnout has been getting worse nationwide. So here are some of the top stats that we found for the year 2024. The first one, K through 12 teachers are the number one most burnt out profession in the United States. Second, 44 % of teachers in K through 12 schools report often or

always feeling burnout. Third, 90 % of teachers claim that feeling burned out is a serious problem. Fourth, over half of teachers say they will leave teaching sooner than originally planned. Fifth, there are 500 ,000 plus fewer educators in the American public school systems post pandemic.

44 % of public schools posted teaching vacancies in early 2022. Seventh, 43 % of educator job postings are going unfilled. Eighth, 30 % of teachers were found to be chronically absent. And finally, compensation is the number one reason educators plan to quit their jobs.

Thanks everyone for joining us for the Data Dive. If you're interested in where we got these statistics from, check the show notes. But for now, back to you, Andrew and Gina.

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Gina, some of those stats are insane. Is there anything that he said that sticks out to you the most? Yeah, know, K through 12 teachers are the number one most burnout profession in the United States. That's crazy. Yeah. I'm genuinely like, I don't want to get emotional, but that statistic, like, wow. My mom and brother were K through 12 educators. My mom has since retired and my brother...

He was a middle school teacher and then principal. He now leads a hybrid homeschool program with his wife. But I remember when my mom retired and she wasn't necessarily ready to end her career. She had a lot more to give, but she knew it was time to go. And she actually retired young. But before she left and even a few years after she left, she took some significant action on her own to help herself and others address burnout. I'll show.

I'll share a lot more about that later. And even though my mom moved on from teaching her formal job, she actually started doing some other stuff too. But what about you, Andrew? Yeah, I mean, there's a lot that stuck out, obviously. But to me, 44 % of teachers saying they often or always feel burnout is crazy. So this is not a one -time show. Many teachers are going, this is my

my constant state of feeling. But the other one that really stuck out to me was the 43 % of educational jobs are going unfilled. that means I'm thinking about my educational leaders listening to this right now. That means there's a strong likelihood that many of people listening to this right now that you have unfilled positions.

you're having to scramble for solutions, which is probably increasing the burnout of those educational leaders, right? Just a few months ago, I immediately thought of an educator I was talking to who told me, yeah, I actually would say it doesn't take much to be a teacher these days. We are so short staff that I will hire about anyone as long as they pass a background check. That's what she told me. This anecdote does not seem so outlandish when I think about having so many positions unfilled.

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And that's the hardest part for me in all of this, you know, of all of the professions out there. This is the one that is struggling and struggling the most. What job is more important than developing and training the next generation? They are literally our future, but we've allowed the profession of teaching to fall through the cracks. And here's the other thing too. I would say a lot of people too are going to point these stats toward COVID.

They're going to say that, COVID happened and it's the source of everything. And I often refer to COVID as a highlighter. And it's a multicolored highlighter. And what I mean by that is, is it's highlighting things that maybe we should have addressed and didn't. It's highlighting things that maybe now are being amplified and we just didn't know about them. It's highlighting the good things too.

the good things that we were doing that like, man, we did that and we should keep doing it, right? Because we were able to make pivots. It's a highlighter. It taught us and our pivots and survival through it taught us practices that we need to stop, start or continue. Yeah. Right. But it's not COVID's fault. Yeah. It's more than that. Yeah. It's more than that. But I just am so still alarmed that we haven't

We were still figuring out a way to address this. Yeah, it is crazy It is crazy and I totally agree with you about why is it this profession of all the ones because we both believe it's so important So Gina, here's what I want to do. I actually want to us to mine a little bit of your wisdom So you're in the unique position not only of having experienced burnout But having done so as an educator and you've been an educator at multiple levels a leadership coach you've been speaking on stages for years and years

So I want you to treat me like I'm one of those school administrators with a building full of overworked, unappreciated educators. For sure. And give me a few insights into what are the most important things we need to address if we would go, burnout is a major problem at my school. What do I do to help kind of turn the tide? Yeah, thank you. You know, I think I have a couple of ideas that I'd recommend. I am sure that not all of them will be applicable to every context.

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or to every listener. But I invite you, if you're spending time with us today and you're listening, to choose what advice is most helpful. And maybe it's something that you personally can't do something about, but you can pass it on to somebody else to possibly consider. So the first one, the action idea number one, is to address salary. I know, I know, I know, but just bear with me.

For just a moment, You you heard in the research that the number one reason many teachers are considering leaving their jobs is that they feel underpaid. Even if teacher salaries have remained stagnant, inflation has not. It's harder to live on the same salary today than it was even four or five years ago. I know for many listening who work in public schools, teacher pay is not something that you can control. And in those cases, I encourage you to work with your

teachers to educate them on how they can get more pay while staying in the profession. Things like certificate programs, graduate degrees, and even monetizing activities that they are already doing on websites like Teachers Pay Teachers can all be great ways to increase pay, but many teachers don't know about them. I think the other thing too is to have a posture. you're an administrator, have a posture of career coaching with your staff.

And here's what I mean by that. Sometimes I think we hesitate as supervisors, as managers, as leaders, as decision makers, to spend time with our staff and to talk to them about their goals, their personal goals, their professional goals, and what is it they feel called to in this season. Friends, it's okay. Like even though there are unfilled positions, it's okay to help people see

what they're supposed to be doing in various seasons of life. We're not in a generation of workers where people stay for 35 years. And if you were to help people to see where they're most gifted and where they can share their gifts, you actually might retain people who want to be there longer and you will help release people who have maybe just been afraid and stuck to go.

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if you stay, if people stay because they feel stuck or they feel afraid, that doesn't create a positive environment. Absolutely. And so I have been a career coach. I was looking at this stuff the other day and I was like, I have been doing this for 18 years, career development. That's a while, Gina. I know and I don't look it. I wish you could see my face. Yeah, you started coaching when you were five. did. That's the only explanation. did. But yeah, so I...

So anyway, so I just think if we had more healthy conversations about, know, and postures to walk with our staff and have transparent conversations about that, it actually would help as well. And it does address salary in many ways. don't know if listeners are familiar with the late great Zig Ziglar. I know you know that name. But I heard him once in a recording say the only thing worse

than developing one of your people and they leave is not developing them and they stay. Hey, hey. And I have thought about that so many times, right? Because we do get this fear of like, well, what if I sit down with a teacher and talk to their financial goals and then honestly, my best advice to them is you should pursue this and it may lead you away from my school. It's like the worst thing you can do is actually never have that conversation. And I know you could point to this, Andrew, too.

I've had so many career coaching conversations with people over the years. I've been supervising folks for at least 20 years. every one of them, it amazes me time and time again, the number of people who I'm pretty confident after having a career conversation are gonna leave, they choose to stay because they were heard. And they're on fire. They're on fire for their job. They're on fire for the work they get to do. And it totally changes the atmosphere. Because their leader.

showed they cared, invested in them, all that kind of stuff. That's great. Well, pay is certainly an elephant in the room, but we've got to talk about it, especially because it's showing in the data that it is a major factor. And we agree, teachers deserve to be paid well. Of course, yes. So like that's not, yeah, for us, we know that. And that's the great part about this conversation is every single...

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person listening to this is probably in agreement on that. We all know it. We want it to happen. The question is, how can you bring that conversation to the forefront? So, all right, we need to keep going. Yeah, you gave us idea number one. Give us idea number two. Idea number two is to enhance mental wellness opportunities. First of all, this means expanding the availability and awareness of mental health supports like counseling services and professional development. But it also is about creating space for mental health to improve by offering comprehensive support packages that include more pay believe.

and wellness programs as a part of the total compensation package. We've got to start expanding our definition of what does wellness include, right? And get creative in how to do that. Like, I think back on my own story that I told, if my company at the time had some of those same opportunities, right? If I had been made aware of, here's how to know when you're having a panic attack. Here's how to look for signs that your mental health is not where it is.

my crisis moment likely wouldn't have been as bad or maybe nonexistent at all. So these kinds of things are crucial. For sure. Number three is promoting positive school cultures. know, fostering supportive and collaborative school environments can improve teacher well -being and retention. School leaders should focus on building strong relationships, providing adequate support, and promoting teacher autonomy. You know, earlier when I talked about my mom, I said that she had done some things to care for herself and her colleagues.

I think sometimes as administrators, we believe that we need to hold all of the weight. Like when it comes to wellness or when it comes to providing and serving and caring for our staff and our leaders. I think that's not really true. While I believe that administrators should create and promote a positive culture, the ownership of the culture belongs to the body, not just a part.

Yeah. Right? And the administrator is a part of the full body. And so when my mom, what she did was that she started what she called a secret sister program for the lady teachers in the school. And basically they could opt into the program and agree to be matched to a fellow teacher to be her secret sister for the school year. They agree to anonymously give small gifts, celebrate milestones and birthdays and give notes of encouragement. It expanded from her high school, which my mom was a high school educator,

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building to the whole school district. And over nearly 10 years, she served dozens of women, hosted annual luncheons where she gave awards, and each secret sister met their sister for the year. And she also sent out monthly newsletters. And she did all of this before social media. And how in the world was that possible? And Canva. And all those things. Right? She did it. She did it. She had to like type on a typewriter.

or a computer and print it out and walk things to people, right? Or send emails. We did have email, I guess, for part of that. And so she did it without being asked. She leaned in and she asked ladies to lean in with her. And she is a culture changer. My point is, in sharing that, is that positive culture doesn't require a lot of money. It doesn't require a lot of research. It doesn't require you to have a title or position. It requires your faithful yes. Yeah. And if you feel...

if you feel supported through things like that, it's not that you won't experience burnout, it's that when you do, you've got a support system of people around you. Yeah, and I know in a future episode, we're gonna talk about mentorship, but my mom continued to do that program after she retired. And so it's thinking about ways that when people leave, what's the leaving doing? And how are you leaving? And are you leaving well? Love it. All right, number four, number four.

Targeted support for two categories that are struggling the most and that's for female teachers and black teachers. Implementing specific interventions to support female and black teachers can help address the unique stressors that they face. This could include mentorship programs, professional development opportunities, and targeted mental health resources.

You know, there are so many resources out there for various communities of educators. You don't have to be an expert or reinvent the wheel. You just have to research it, use it, and show up. And I know for some folks you might say, well, there's other populations of people that are also not listed here, Gina. Like, why did you pick those? Well, those are the two that that right now are experiencing the most significant burnout. But that doesn't mean that other groups or bodies of people also don't need.

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The same rule applies and you should actually apply it if you have a specific population of people who are struggling. And I just want to say like if you as the leader are not a woman, not a person of color, find somebody who is to get some advice on policies or perhaps go to those people in your school and go, what should we do? This was really helpful for me when I started hiring women and women of color to just sit down with people and go, what am I missing? What questions am I not asking?

what perspectives should I be approaching this with as a leader? I got context for some areas that where they might be struggling that I would never have even realized or thought of because I sought out those answers. So if you're listening to this, especially my fellow white males out there, like put your humility hat on and go find out what you're missing because that can help you a lot in these conversations. That authentic and genuine interest does more than anything.

Agreed. just, it does, maybe not more than anything, but does a lot. It does a lot. It opens so many doors for trust. And so, as a peer and somebody who has experienced that of you, I can tell you guys it's valuable and important. Number five, to wrap it up, you know, I really encourage this, but I want you to listen to everything I'm going to say when I talk about this one, is use staff surveys for ongoing monitoring and insight.

You know, if you aren't already using regular surveys that take the temperature of your staff, the cultural temperature of your staff, I highly recommend it. Understanding the evolving challenges teachers face is essential for developing responsive and impactful solutions. You can't solve a problem you don't know you have. But a word of caution, if you do not intend to do anything with the results of the survey, then don't.

do them. Yeah. Just take one thing from the survey and use it and then report on it to share that you did take action on feedback that was given. Love this. Yeah. this. Yeah. Amazing, Gina. Thank you so much. My pleasure. Super, super practical pieces of advice. And honestly, if somebody's sitting out there going, burnout's a major issue, you probably just gave them an idea of a great way to start. So I hope so. I appreciate that. So you've given us a lot of advice, but what do we do about it?

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I think we need a DMI. DMI time. I think we need to turn our TMI into a DMI. You see what I did there? I see what you did there. You don't like it, but you do see it. I value it because I love your corny, corniness. Thank you. Yes. It's a part of my quest not to take myself too seriously. All right. So each of us is going to pick the one thing

that was said in this episode that we need to bold, underline, highlight, all caps. It's the thing that we don't want people to miss. Without further ado, it's time for DMI.

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All right, Andrew, do want to kick us off? What was the best thing that you heard today? Well, Gina said so many amazing things today. It's hard to pick. But I really think the piece of advice that stuck out the most to me was about culture building. hear about teacher burnout all the time and we're like, I just need to hire more teachers. I just need to do all this stuff. But what we don't think about, the thing that is so much in our control is the kind of culture we're building in our schools. And I am particularly thinking about

that educational leader who's at a public school that cannot control pay, that cannot control policy, in a lot of cases, do you know what they can control? They can control culture. They can specifically choose to do things that make teachers feel supported and loved and cared for and create opportunities for tighter relationships. So to me, I feel like that was the most actionable advice that literally anyone listening to this could dial in on. That's good. Yeah. What about you?

Yeah, I think for me, was, you know, thinking about targeted support for specific populations of teachers in your midst. think sometimes when we know that there's a problem, but maybe we're not equipped or educated or we don't have the experience to address it and we don't want to offend.

Right? We don't want to offend. We don't want to create more barriers. We don't want to cause more tension. We tend to like step back and not do anything. And I just think I want you guys to hear that like it's not about you being the expert on everybody's problem. Yeah. Or everybody's situation. It's about you leaning in and listening and taking action on what you can do. And sometimes taking action is listening.

Yeah. And also sometimes taking action is getting somebody else's resources who already knows how to do it and they can do it better and why would you recreate it? Okay. That sounds like that came from personal experience. just saying. Other people do smart stuff too. Use their stuff. That is the truth. That is the truth. Well, we need to move to close. Thank you guys so much for joining us today on the School on a Mission podcast. Gina, thank you for giving us lots of really great advice. Thank you. Now, before you hit skip,

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onto your next podcast, we've got a little challenge for you. Grab a pen, a notebook, a sticky note, or even the back of your hand if you have to, and write down one action step you're going to take this week. Maybe it's something you're going to do, something you're going to investigate further, something you want to read more about, or perhaps it's a person you want to meet with. Got it? Okay, perfect. Now, shoot us a DM on social media with that action step. We cannot wait to hear the awesome things that you're up to.

Until next time friends, stay curious, stay bold, and keep leading your school on a mission.