While back-to-school time is an occasion for school systems to set their priorities and align resources to ensure a successful school year, many focus exclusively on students’ needs and fail to address the needs that ensure their staff members’ well-being. When this occurs, schools miss out on opportunities to reduce school system costs, foster positive working conditions, and improve outcomes for students.
Instead, to achieve a level of wellness that is equitable and sustainable for all employees, school systems should take a comprehensive approach. This blog presents four strategies to do that, informed by research on school employee wellness, health equity, and implementation science.
Figure: Improving School Employee Wellness
The left two circles in the figure show steps to take when addressing wellness, while the right circle shows the six dimensions of wellness for school employees and highlights the role of advocacy.
Center the voices of a broad range of education workforce members. Discussions about school employee wellness often focus on classroom teachers; however, nearly half of school staff serve in other critical roles such as counselors, paraprofessionals, librarians, bus drivers, and food service staff. When school systems implement plans that do not reflect the diverse education workforce, their investments may fail to address the needs of all staff—or even worse, they may have unintended negative consequences for some staff.
Collect and disaggregate data to identify inequities. Efforts to achieve equitable school employee wellness should be informed by data. School systems should engage teams that reflect the diversity of the education workforce with respect to positions, tenure, and sociodemographic characteristics to assess needs and monitor progress. Whenever possible, teams should move beyond looking at overall averages to examine patterns among different groups of employees so they can identify whether some groups need more—or different—supports.
Distribute resources and set/enforce policies fairly. School district policies, programs, and practices can influence school employees’ wellness both directly (e.g., through salaries and employee benefits) and indirectly (e.g., through working conditions and job stressors). While many strategies to promote employee well-being are implemented at the school level, efforts to achieve equitable and sustainable improvements must address systemic barriers, which often require changes to school system policies, programs, and practices.