Port Clinton Social Emotional Learning & Mental Wellness Symposium

In this session, participants will explore strategies to build staff morale and address teacher burnout through a focus on relationships, culture, and support. It will provide actionable tools and real-world examples to help educational leaders create a school culture that values its educators, inspires collaboration, and enhances overall morale. Walk away with strategies to transform challenges into opportunities for growth and ensure your school is a place where staff feels valued, supported, and empowered to succeed.

All educators are aware of the incredible demands of working with today's students. Not enough educators, though, take the time to look closely at ways to reduce their own workload and stress levels, to steal time during the school day and year, to invest time in the happiness of one's self and one's colleagues, and to lean into the common struggles all educators face. We tend to work only on some of these aspects, alone and in "quiet desperation," as Thoreau famously noted. This session will cover aspects such as taming the grading workload, improving morale as a staff or building, joyful communication, and other techniques that, in concert, will make a tremendous, positive difference for you and for your colleagues (and, by extension, your students).

We will not accidentally build positive wellness habits and good self-regulation skills, and neither will our students. These skills need to be modeled, encouraged, and practiced with intention. This presentation based on both my children's book on wellness, anxiety coping skills and mindfulness, Unthink Before Bed, and my research an application for The Apple Education Community Forum on using devices to build self-regulation skills with devices and improve wellness, will help us identify and address many of the challenges students face and adults. I will recommend free apps and settings to assist in solving the challenge, and offer a vision of the desired outcome to improve wellness and increase self-regulation. Giving away copies of my book too, and podcast stickers. Participants will learn and practice coping and regulation skills both on their devices and with mind and body.

In this session, participants will explore strategies to build staff morale and address teacher burnout through a focus on relationships, culture, and support. It will provide actionable tools and real-world examples to help educational leaders create a school culture that values its educators, inspires collaboration, and enhances overall morale. Walk away with strategies to transform challenges into opportunities for growth and ensure your school is a place where staff feels valued, supported, and empowered to succeed.