Middle school teachers’ perceptions of contributing factors to teacher wellness

Literature reports that teaching is considered a career with one of the highest levels of stress. This stress can impact teacher wellness, teacher attrition, and ultimately, student achievement. Despite knowing that teacher stress can lead to burnout, our school system continues to struggle to implement whole system reform that leads to healthy school cultures and teacher wellness. This study centered around the question: what do middle school teachers perceive to be the contributing factors to teacher wellness within a school? Four middle school teachers were interviewed to understand their perspectives on contributing factors to teacher wellness. Results discuss teacher wellness being related to workload, administration, team, reconfiguration, and school culture. This study provides practical strategies to improve teacher wellness through supportive administration, purposeful community building, and healthy school culture development. These practical strategies consider the use of servant leadership attributes to achieve healthy school cultures to improve teacher wellness.