THe problem: The need for educator wellness is at a high point with the lasting traumas and stress of the pandemic and the teacher shortages putting an increased burden on the staff who remain- stretching everyone thin. Yet the funding that supported educator wellness partnerships for dc schools expires in october of 2023- cutting off a critical service for schools. 

THE SOLUTIONS:

1. Locally fund educator wellness grants through OSSE at $750,000 recurring annually

2. guarantee all teachers - across sector- explicit mental health days (at least 1 per semester)
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3.Provide funding and infrastructure to provide mental health services to school staff
 We The Details: 
⇨ Grant Program: Federal COVID relief dollars from ESSR provided funding for 5 partner organizations- through OSSE- to partner with five schools a piece over the past two school years. EmpowerEd is one of the grantees. These partnerships have yielded tremendous success and learning- enabling the 25 partner schools to develop staff wellness teams, make an educator wellness plan, have technical assistance from experts, train and facilitate school-based leaders and implement new wellness programs and policies at the individual, relational and systemic level in their schools. The demand from schools not in the program for educator wellness support is high. We cannot let this funding lapse at this critical time. We need to locally fund this grant program, ideally at $150,000 per partner organization or $750,000 total annually. 

⇨ Mental Health Days: While many schools allow educators to take days off for mental health under their sick leave policies, without explicit days for mental health educators report not taking time off for their mental health, even with they reach crisis state. Additionally, we hear from educators that different administrators take different approaches to approving leave requests, requiring a universal policy to ensure fairness. By building in explicit mental health days we can help ensure teachers can show up with their full selves for our students.

⇨ Mental health support for school staff: We know that we have a real need for mental health support for our school staff as well as students. At the same time, we're currently experiencing a huge pipeline problem and shortage of mental health professionals for schools. We believe we need both an investment in the pipeline of clinicians and also immediate solutions- like funding Wellness Coordinators for high need schools that can coordinate wellness programming and services for both students and staff and coordinate school partners  that can provide services. We should also consider policies that provide funding to teachers seeking outside counseling, mental health support.
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