During the coronavirus pandemic, schools must find remote ways to continue providing learning and enrichment opportunities for students while also remaining committed to the social and emotional needs of entire school communities. As community members focus on sheltering in place and social distancing, they lose in-person connections and take on…

The World Health Organization (WHO) has made the assessment that COVID-19 (coronavirus) can be characterised as a pandemic and the virus has now spread to many countries and territories. While a lot is still unknown about the virus that causes COVID-19, we do know that it is transmitted through direct contact with respiratory droplets of an…

Early childhood professionals are familiar with finding and appreciating daily moments of joy. Teachers smile inside and out when toddlers are able to pull up their own pants, preschoolers write their names for the first time, or kindergarteners figure out how to make complicated patterns with blocks. Working with young children can also be very…

What happens when school personnel, or family members of one's students are laid off, are out of work for months, and their unemployment insurance ends? What happens when students complain that they can't find after-school or summer jobs? When these things occur, people worry about what will happen to them and to those they care about. Students…

With the need for rapid school reform amid changes in socioeconomic and political situations, evidence abounds that today's school principals operate in a stress-strained environment. Participants of this study identified at least a form of stress on the job. More than 96% claimed to have experienced work-related stress at a level they believed…

The purpose of this study was to describe special education administrators' reports of the social supports (House, 1981) that ameliorate the stress inherent in their professional role. This study used a mixed methods design and was conducted in two sequential phases involving 153 special education administrators in a northeastern state. During…

Research has shown that students' social, emotional, and behavioral health affects their academic achievement. This has enormous implications for teachers, school mental health providers, and the students themselves. A student who is hungry, disengaged, preoccupied, or behaviorally disruptive simply is not going to respond as well to even the best…

Research indicates that mental health social workers risk being confronted with fatal and nonfatal client suicidal behaviors during professional practice. Although reactions to client suicidal behavior have been documented, there is little empirical evidence about coping behaviors and available supports following client suicidal behavior. This…

Investigated burnout levels and coping strategies of 162 superintendents of public residential facilities for mentally retarded persons. Results indicated that mean overall burnout scores tended to be lower than those reported for other human service employees. Superintendents tended to favor direct/active strategies for coping with stressors.…

Early days on the job can be less than joyful for new teachers who regularly find themselves in seemingly impossible situations. Four educators who survived to tell the tale share their experiences and offer insight into what gave them the strength to continue on their chosen path.

One of a series of practitioner-oriented newsletters, the document provides elementary school principals with tips for dealing with stress. Because principals spend approximately 80 percent of their workday in face-to-face interchanges (with staff, faculty, parents, and others), the article gives warning signals indicative of too much stress. A…

Examines (1) a simple model of the origin, development, and effects of stress; (2) the 12 most important causes of stress found in a survey of Oregon school administrators; (3) coping strategies used by the administrators surveyed; and (4) management skills as a potential coping technique. (MCG)

University department chairs need to manage stress to their advantage. Myths pertaining to stress include: (1) stress is harmful; (2) stress should be avoided; (3) stress correlates with level of responsibility; (4) stress is predominantly a male phenomenon; and (5) there is one appropriate coping method. The Chair Stress Cycle provides a broad…

This paper describes the symptoms and ways of coping with chronic stress and briefly discusses effects of job related stress on school principals. Although stress is a normal condition, the symptoms should be identified. Under long-term stress individuals may experience six types of reactions, such as feelings of fatique and difficulty sleeping.…

The study of school leaders' feelings during and about their work suffers from inadequate academic definitions about the depth, character, and legitimacy of those feelings, as well as from limitations on the means of capturing and recording those feelings. This study pushes the definitions of administrators' stress into the areas of traumatic…