I thought I knew kids.

When I decided to make the leap from teacher to administrator, I was nervous about many parts of my new role, but that wasn’t one of them. After 10 years in the classroom and experience across the K-8 range in a variety of school settings, I knew what kids needed and how to help the ones who struggled.

Then, exactly one week after I signed my contract for my first administrative position, the world shut down, and everything changed. The next two years were the hardest, most depressing years I’ve ever experienced in this field. At the lowest point in the middle of pandemic year two, I was searching for jobs on Indeed.com, considering for the first time since I entered the profession at 22 years old that I might want to do something else with my life.

I preface a conversation about our collective wellness with this story because it is ubiquitous to anyone who taught or led a school through the pandemic. My story was lived by educators across this nation and is still being experienced today. Teachers, administrators, counselors — anyone who works with youth in any way — are dealing with an entire generation of traumatized young people. And, instead of this shared trauma being a common ground to stand upon, it became a further source of division between educators and the children they so genuinely want to help. Teachers who are faced with the choice between the job they love and their mental wellness are leaving the profession in droves. A National Education Association poll from earlier this year showed alarming rates of teacher burnout, with 55 percent of educators indicating they are ready to leave the profession early and an eye-opening 90 percent indicating that burnout is a serious problem (Jotkoff, 2022). Those of us involved in hiring see daily the issues with staffing shortages and how that continues to impact both our systems and our current employees.

And the kids are not all right. In comparing the 2019-2020 and 2021-2022 school years at my site, there was a 76 percent increase in physical altercations among students, even with a robust Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports framework in place during the latter year. Even though my school had full in-person instruction through almost the entirety of both the 2020-2021 and 2021-2022 school years, we still saw a dip in test scores. The mental health of our nation’s children has been on the decline for years with a reported 40 percent increase in feelings of hopelessness in adolescents between 2009 and 2019; the pandemic significantly exasperated an already growing concern (CDC, 2022).

Again, this is not unique. We are all struggling — students, teachers, staff, school leaders and parents. Recognizing the problem is the first step, but stopping there simply leads to defeatism. The question becomes, where do we go from here? There are many motivational speakers with a wealth of research who can explain how we can upend education as we know it to the betterment of all, but there is also value in addressing the practicalities that come with a busy group of people with limited resources trying to take care of a community of people in need.

As we head into a new year, we have to think about our priorities. Mental health and wellness for both students and staff are likely to be near the top of every school leader’s list. It sometimes feels like we are performing triage. How do we stop the bleeding and stabilize our schools? As individual school leaders, we may not be able to fix the problems with education as a whole or with staffing shortages in general, but I believe there are fixes within my power that can positively impact my school community and serve the students in my care.

First and foremost is our mental wellness. If we aren’t okay, those we try to lead will not be okay either. The National Association of Secondary School Principals reported on a survey that showed 38 percent of principals expect to leave the profession within the next three years (NASSP, 2022). What will be left for our students when half the teachers and over a third of the school leaders walk away? It starts with us. Good teaching begins with modeling, and the same is true of leadership. We have a responsibility to those we lead to model healthy habits and stress management. This is not new advice, and we have a moral imperative to stop ignoring it.