From Burnout to Balance: Tell Your Story Through Systems of Support Building up your teachers by design—not by chance

Building up your teachers by design—not by chance

At the AASA, The School Superintendents Association National Conference on Education, the theme of storytelling was everywhere.

Tell your story. Shape the narrative. Elevate the work. And we should.

Public education needs strong storytellers because there are plenty of loud voices telling our story for us.

But as I listened to superintendents from across the country—leaders juggling budgets, staffing shortages, political tension, and rising student needs—I kept coming back to one quiet question: What story are we telling about how we support the people doing the work?

Because beneath the keynote slides and initiative updates, there was another shared truth: our teachers are carrying more than the curriculum. They are carrying student grief. Family instability. Community division. Academic gaps. And their own lives outside of school.

Then we ask them to walk back into their classrooms and teach as if none of that follows them through the door.

So if we are going to tell our story well, it cannot only be about outcomes and innovation. It must include the systems we build to sustain the adults inside our schools. The nervous system is part of the system

We talk about instructional frameworks and MTSS alignment. We talk about data cycles and strategic plans. We rarely talk about nervous systems.

But stress moves through systems. Research on secondary traumatic stress and emotional contagion confirms what educators already feel: tone matters, pacing matters, leadership responses matter.

When leaders are dysregulated, buildings feel it. When leaders are grounded, buildings feel that too.

One of the simplest neuroscience-aligned tools we have is naming what is real—what is often called “name it to tame it.” When we name stress, it becomes more manageable. When we ignore it, it accumulates.

Accumulated stress does not disappear.

It shows up later as fatigue, irritability, disengagement, or quiet resignation.

Wellness is not a personality trait, it is a system design. If we want resilient teachers, we must build resilient structures. Build the infrastructure before the crisis

At the conference, I heard powerful stories about literacy gains, improved attendance, and innovative programming.

That work matters deeply.

But the districts sustaining those gains shared something else in common: they were building relational infrastructure.

Not occasional morale boosters. Not a once-a-year appreciation lunch. Structures. Scheduled peer check-ins. Embedded appreciation rituals in staff meetings. Clear debrief protocols after hard incidents. Leadership habits that normalize the emotional weight of the work instead of minimizing it.

In my own leadership practice, I have watched something shift when we stop treating teacher stress as a private issue and start treating it as a leadership responsibility.

People exhale. Not because the work becomes easier, because the work becomes shared. And shared load is a sustainable load.

Let’s redefine strength

If we want to build up our teachers, we may need to redefine what strength looks like.

Strength is not silent endurance.

Strength is supported endurance.

Research on psychological safety consistently shows that teams perform better when people feel safe speaking honestly about challenges. Not because we want to dwell on difficulty—but because naming reality strengthens connection and trust.

When teachers feel alone in what they are carrying, burnout accelerates.

When they feel seen, supported, and connected, they stay.

That is a retention strategy. That is a culture strategy. That is a student-outcome strategy.

Because students thrive in environments where adults feel stable and supported.

Monday morning questions

If you are returning from a conference inspired to tell your story, consider starting here:

Where do our teachers have predictable space to process emotional load—built into the schedule, not added on?

What do we do after difficult moments to help staff metabolize what they just held?

What small, repeatable ritual could we embed this month that signals: We see you. You are not doing this alone.

Start small.

But start intentionally.

Culture is not built in crisis response.

It is built in ordinary moments of consistency.

Long after conference banners come down, what will remain is the daily lived experience of the adults in our buildings.

Tell the story of your instructional wins. Tell the story of your students. Tell the story of innovation.

But also tell the story of how you care for the people who make it all possible.

That is not soft. It is smart. It is sustainability. And it may be the most important story we tell this year.

I continue these reflections in my newsletter, The Schoolhouse Promise, where I write about educator well-being, public education, and building systems that help people stay in this work without losing themselves. I’d love to have you join the conversation there.

This post is part of an ongoing series exploring key strategies for preventing burnout and setting boundaries.

• Part I - From Burnout to Balance: Leading Schools Through Trauma
• Part II - From Burnout to Balance: Boundaries Without Guilt
• Part III - From Burnout to Balance: Building Cultures of Support
• Part IV - From Burnout to Balance: The Appreciation Jar as a System-Level Wellness Practice