For more than two decades, I’ve been asking some version of this question: “What helps educators not just stay in the profession, but thrive within it?” I’ve been asking this because I’ve seen extraordinary teachers burn out. I’ve witnessed others weather change and keep showing up with presence and purpose. And I’ve come to believe that while policies, pay, and professional development matter, they’re not the whole story. What makes educators stay is more human—it’s more emotional and relational.
Educators stay when they feel like their work matters. They stay when they’re part of a community. And they stay when they have the skills and support to be resilient.
From Resilience to Healing
When I wrote Onward: Cultivating Emotional Resilience in Educators in 2018, I framed resilience as an essential disposition for educators—and I still believe it is. But over the years, my understanding of resilience has evolved. We can’t talk about resilience without talking about emotions. And we can’t talk about emotions without talking about healing.
What drives many educators away from this profession is emotional depletion and the accumulation of grief, frustration, and powerlessness without a place to metabolize those emotions. Resilience begins with naming what we feel, and healing begins when we’re given the space to do that with others.
For example, healing happens when we’re listened to during a meeting or in a moment of laughter with a colleague. It happens when a coach says, “That sounds hard. How are you doing, really?” These micro-moments of care and connection are the glue that holds professional relationships in place and keeps people coming back.
Putting This into Practice:
In the next staff meeting, dedicate five minutes at the start to check in emotionally. Try a prompt like, “What’s something you’re carrying this week?” or “What emotion has been most present for you?” Normalize emotional reflection as part of the work.
Coaching as a Lifeline
When I recall the teachers who have stayed, I see a common thread: They had someone who coached them. Coaching is not a silver bullet, but it is one of the most powerful retention strategies we have because it creates a space where a teacher can be vulnerable, can reflect, and can grow.
In my book Arise: The Art of Transformational Coaching, I write about the core capacities of Transformational Coaching: building trust, coaching emotions, cultivating agency, and navigating power. These aren’t just skills for improving instruction: They’re the skills that foster belonging, meaning, and self-efficacy—three emotional states that are essential for staying in the work.
Educators stay when they have the skills and support to be resilient.
If we want educators to stay, we need to invest in coaches who can offer this kind of relational, emotional, and strategic support. And we need to train all leaders—principals, instructional leaders, department chairs—to coach in ways that center the human experience of teaching.
Putting This into Practice:
Review the coaching supports in your school. Who gets coached and how often? If there are gaps, create a plan to ensure every educator has access to consistent, emotionally intelligent coaching—even if it starts with just one conversation per quarter.
The Power of Community
Educators also stay when they feel part of something bigger than themselves. A strong school culture—one where adults trust each other, where conflict is navigated skillfully, where joy and gratitude are daily experiences—can be the most powerful reason a teacher chooses to stay.
Culture is built intentionally through community agreements—norms that guide a group’s behaviors—and shared rituals, like how we start meetings or handle mistakes. And it’s built in how leaders model vulnerability, curiosity, and care.
Putting This into Practice:
Introduce or revisit community agreements at your next team meeting. Ask, “What do we need from each other to feel safe, supported, and seen in this space?” Co-create or revise agreements and commit to revisiting them regularly.
Purpose and Alignment
Another reason educators stay? Because their work aligns with their values. When I coach educators, I often begin by helping them identify their core values. Many name things like justice, creativity, compassion, and love. When they feel like their work allows them to live out those values, they thrive. But when there’s a disconnect—when a teacher who values equity is asked to enforce punitive discipline practices, for example—it can create deep internal conflict.
This misalignment can erode an educator’s sense of identity and purpose. It can make them question whether they can stay in the system at all. But when we help educators name their values and then coach them toward alignment, we restore their sense of agency. We remind them that they have choices, and that their presence, decisions, and integrity matter.
Putting This into Practice:
Invite staff to complete a short Core Values Reflection at the start of the year (download an example). Ask, “What three values guide you as an educator?” Follow up in one-on-ones by asking how they’re living those values—and where there might be friction.
Doing the Inner Work
If we want educators to stay, we must stop asking them to do the impossible in isolation. We must invest in their well-being. We must create teams and schools where emotions are acknowledged, where trust is cultivated, and where coaching is the culture. We must reconnect educators to their purpose and to each other.
And we—those who lead, coach, and care—must also do our inner work. We must tend to our own resilience, our own healing, and our own values. Because when we are grounded and whole, we can help others stay in their schools and classrooms.
