In 2018, Minnesota mum, Jessica Werner was told by her son’s preschool that he had to leave due to behavioural challenges. This hit painfully close to home. As an experienced educator, she’d spent years supporting teachers through similar crises – now she was a parent on the receiving end of a broken system.
“He won’t be the last child you see like this,” Werner warned the preschool administration. “While I understand that you can’t support him now, just know, there will be more coming.”
In 2020, Dr Werner founded Northshore Learning to support teachers by helping them create inclusive learning environments that foster communication, regulation, and learning. Since then, Dr Werner has worked with schools worldwide as an instructor, a professor of education and classroom management, and a consultant.
In a full-circle moment, the school that dismissed her son later reached out for help. They began seeing more students like him who had more behaviours, needs and complexities. They needed support. Werner happily now partners with that school to train and mentor its teachers.
Flash back to when Jessica began her career. She started just like so many teachers do: with passion, heart, and the belief that she could make a difference. She didn’t expect what she experienced in her first year.
“The hardest part of teaching wasn’t the teaching,” Dr Werner said. “It was the behaviour, regulation, and emotional needs of my students, and I wasn’t prepared.”
Determined to stay in the profession, she spent an entire summer interviewing experts, training herself, and rebuilding her approach from the ground up. She returned as a completely new teacher. That transformation became the foundation for the work she does now.
Teachers are overwhelmed by rising student behaviour and mental-health needs
Behaviours and mental-health needs have been rising steadily in schools for the past 20 years, with one 2024 Wall Street Journal article noting that behaviour concerns are now the number one reason teachers cite for burnout.
“The amount of time teachers are taking to address behaviours in the classroom can eat into hours of teaching time each week,” Dr Werner said. “Educators are also seeing an increase in mental health challenges reported or experienced by children of all ages, PK-12.”
Dr Werner said the growing complexity of students’ needs has left many teachers feeling stretched beyond their professional training and capacity.
“Educators are not trained as mental health first responders, such as a counsellor or social worker, and can feel overwhelmed by understanding their students have needs that are outside of their realm of expertise.”
And parents are feeling the strain too, says Dr Werner.
“This feels like an impossible time to be a parent, particularly is your children experience academic, behavioral, social, emotional, or mental health needs,” she said.
“Not all schools have mental health professionals on staff, insurance is difficult to navigate, and when you finally do find a provider you’d like to utilize, they may have waiting lists for months or even years.”
Administrators are struggling to support staff in the post-COVID landscape
Dr Werner said while every administrator that Northshore Learning works with desires to do right by their staff and students, the mental health needs of staff members are also overwhelming for school administrators.
“This may manifest in numerous absences taken by teachers, mental health long-term leave, emotional difficulties surfacing during the school day, and burnout of staff that results in staff choosing not to renew their contracts or stay in teaching at all,” she said.
“School counsellors and social workers have told me that their caseload of students is completely full, but also the number of school staff looking for mental health support is high. They find themselves being counsellors for both students and educators.”
Schools are searching desperately for tools, training, and stability
Everyone is searching for an answer to teacher burnout, and while there’s no silver bullet, the research is clear: giving teachers meaningful opportunities to build their sense of effectiveness is key to improving job satisfaction.
“Opportunities for community and collaboration among colleagues, receiving meaningful and targeted professional development , and opportunities for leadership enhancement help as well,” Dr Werner said.
“High staff turnover is not a sign of a healthy school, and parents and administrators know this. If you are not targeting teacher job satisfaction right now you are missing out on an important opportunity.”