Employee Well-being

Creating a culture of belonging and holistic wellness for education-system employees leads to professional satisfaction and employee retention and well-being. Improved workplace culture creates a ripple effect to impact students’ success and positive outcomes.

To improve the recruitment and retention of the high-quality educators our children need and deserve, we must take strategic, cohesive, and systematic action. This includes supporting educators across the Educator Advancement Continuum and prioritizing their social and emotional health and well-being. Educators should have opportunities to experience healthiness, agency, and well-being for themselves, prioritizing their own growth. This will further develop their abilities to support academic, social, and emotional growth in students.

The Oregon Department of Education is excited to unite the education sector to address the complex systemic challenges that impact the Oregon education systems’ workforce wellness. Through this work, we will improve educator well-being, the overall school climate and the collective wellness of our school communities; together we can create a culture of well-being!

 

ODE has multiple initiatives that align closely with the well-being of the education workforce, such as those relating to teacher practices, leadership practices, attendance, care and connection, TSEL, and discipline/behavior. Rather than work in silos, it is imperative to partner with existing efforts internally to understand and respond to education employee’s well-being needs.

The action areas indicated below are addressed in the 2025-2026 Education Workforce Wellness Action Plan.

Goals

• Foster a supportive environment for sharing experiences and best practices around employee well-being in the education system.
• Enhance awareness of the importance of employee well-being in the education system.
• Engage leadership to actively support, role model, and give permission to participate in employee well-being for educators.
• Showcase promising practices for elevating education-system employee wellness.
• Equip educators with practical strategies to improve well-being in their educational environments.
• Embody well-being.
  
  

Best Practices

On June 11, 2025, as part of the Best Practices Series for the Quality Education Commission (QEC), state staff delivered two presentations related to the education workforce:

1. Best Practice Series: Educator Recruitment & Retention - Lynne Gardner, Educator Advancement Council (begins at 10:50 in the full QEC recording on ODE's YouTube)
2. Best Practice Series: Employee Belonging and Well-Being - Bhagavati Mullock, ODE Health in Education (begins at 1:23:00 in the full QEC recording on ODE's YouTube)
   

On June 16th, 2025, ODE staff presented this collective work on elevating education-system employee wellness as a preconference workshop at COSA Seaside 2025. Please reach out if you would like a copy of the presentation slides.

Elevating Education-System Employee Wellness

The Health in Education Unit has been including an Elevating Education-System Employee Wellness article in Dr. William’s monthly newsletter since May 2025. These monthly offerings are designed to share information and resources to support school communities in developing systems/structures to support educators’ well-being. In August’s edition, we began to explore the concept of somatics, which is a field of study and practice that explores the connection between the mind and body and includes techniques to release tension and promote a sense of embodiment.

How are you Elevating Education-System Employee Wellness?

We’d love to continue hearing from you to acknowledge the creative ways school districts, ESDs and communities are elevating employee wellness. If you are interested in being featured in future communications, please contact the Health in Education Unit at ode.healthyschools@ode.oregon.gov.

More Resources and Partners

Please feel free to check out some of the below resources:

• Oregon Educators Benefit Board (OEBB)
  
• Oregon Teacher Standards and Practices Commission (TSPC)
  
• Oregon Well-Being Trust (Formerly OEA Choice Trust)
  
• ODE's Mental Health and Social Support Guidance for Educators and School Staff
  
• ODE School Nutrition Programs' School Wellness Resources
  

If you'd like to talk more about employee well-being, please contact us at ode.healthyschools@ode.oregon.gov.