Mentors’ recommendations for work-life balance

A university initiative that trains mentors to support new teachers seeks their ideas for promoting work-life balance for all teachers.

Schools, districts, and states, as well as educators and policy makers, have long struggled to determine the best way to support early-career educators (National Institute for Excellence in Teaching, 2021). Approximately 33% of new teachers leave the profession in the first five years in the classroom (Raue, Gray, & O’Rear, 2015). This rate of attrition costs school districts billions of dollars annually, contributes to low morale, and interferes with student learning (Southern Regional Education Board [SREB], 2018).

Because research has shown that having a mentor and participating in an induction program can reduce the attrition rate of new teachers, many schools and districts have adopted mentoring programs to provide ongoing support for new teachers (Raue, Gray, & O’Rear, 2015; SREB, 2018).

The Southern Regional Education Board (SREB, 2018) has found that mentoring support for new teachers exists on a continuum. At the low end, schools provide no formal support from designated mentors, or the assigned mentors receive no formal training. Compliance-driven support provides mentors for new teachers so the new teachers can complete assigned projects. Problem-driven support links mentoring structures and activities to specific challenges new teachers generally encounter in the classroom. Finally, people-driven support provides a development program that supports both mentors and new teachers. At the University of Wyoming, we have sought to implement this people-driven approach by creating a program that supports the mentor so they can better support new teachers.

A program for training mentors

Since its inception, the Trustees Education Initiative in the College of Education at the University of Wyoming has been investigating ways to support early-career educators as they transition into teaching. Launched in 2022 with financial support from a graduate of the College of Education, the Wyoming Teacher Mentor Corps (WTMC) is a training program in which mentor fellows spend approximately 18 months honing their knowledge of how to best support new teachers. Fellows are accepted into the program through a process of nomination and review of their teaching experience, as well as their interest in serving as a mentor. The initial cohort of 18 fellows included teachers and administrators across grade levels and from all regions of Wyoming.

In 2022, mentor fellows gathered for an initial three-day summer mentor institute. They gathered twice in the 2022-23 school year and attended a second summer institute in 2023, when they met a second cohort of fellows. They concluded their training in fall 2023 at a gathering for both cohorts of fellows. The second cohort is still on its learning journey, to be joined by a third cohort in summer 2024. Each cohort meets virtually once a month to check in on their mentoring work and to get feedback and support from cohort members.

Four competencies for mentors

We and the other College of Education faculty and staff supporting the WTMC identified four equally important competencies that mentors need to be successful in supporting new colleagues: assessing teaching and learning, assertive communication, meaningful feedback, and work-life balance. These are the focus of the mentor training.

Assessing teaching and learning

Mentors for novice teachers need to know how to assess mentees’ understanding of teaching and learning and to identify strategies to enhance their work as a classroom teacher (Pfund et al., 2012). In addition, mentors should be prepared to help mentees explore their innate gifts, talents, aptitudes, and characteristics (Woolworth, 2019). They also need the courage and ability to ask deeper questions that get at what is going on inside their mentee and their mentee’s classroom, rather than relying on the mentee’s initial perceptions.

Assertive communication

Mentees have indicated that communication with mentors helps them gain confidence in their abilities and motivates them to develop their potential (Eller, Lev, & Feurer, 2014). For this reason, mentors for novice teachers must be skilled communicators and active listeners. Effective listeners are able to demonstrate that they have heard the speaker and understand the speaker’s thoughts, ideas, and concerns (Institute for Clinical and Translational Research, 2023). Sharing experiences with each other helps mentors and mentees build stronger relationships, which, in turn, demonstrates to the mentee that the mentor is truly interested in knowing them as a person — not just dispensing professional advice to them (Woolworth, 2019). Successful mentors must also learn multiple strategies for improving communication across diverse backgrounds (Pfund, et al., 2012).

Meaningful feedback

Mentors have an obligation to give their mentees meaningful feedback that will help the mentees move forward in their teaching career and improve their practice (Institute for Clinical and Translational Research, 2023). Good feedback identifies and reinforces behaviors that positively impact the mentee’s performance, while altering behaviors that inhibit effective practice (Center for Mentoring Excellence, 2017).

Work-life balance

Maintaining a balance between the requirements of the workplace and those of individual or family life outside of work enables people to contribute successfully in both their personal and professional roles. Because creating and maintaining a healthy work-life balance can be difficult and often requires effective planning, mentees may need advice from their mentors on how to do this (Durbin et al., 2019; Woolworth, 2019). When mentors and mentees discuss signs of work-life imbalance and techniques to improve that balance, both participants benefit (Service Center of Excellence, 2018). Teachers who have higher self-reported levels of well-being and who feel supported professionally are less likely to express a desire to leave teaching (Perkins, 2022).

A focus on work-life balance

Advice about how to balance work and life is abundant, but we believe that educators themselves can be the most valuable source of ideas. As part of the mentor training, we wanted to give mentors opportunities to share their strategies so that they could then, in turn, have an array of strategies to share with their mentees.

When mentors and mentees discuss signs of work-life imbalance and techniques to improve that balance, both participants benefit.

During the fall 2022 retreat, we asked the members of the first WTMC cohort to share their suggestions for how individual teachers can find and maintain work-life balance and how school leaders and systems could help. Working in small groups, the 16 members of the cohort who were present wrote their ideas on large poster paper. They then walked around the room and wrote their initials next to three of the suggestions for individual teachers and three of the suggestions for leaders that resonated with them. Following the retreat, we collected and analyzed the responses and sorted them into categories.

Recommendations for individual teachers

These experienced educators’ ideas for individual teachers tended to fall into three categories, with some additional ideas that came up repeatedly but less often than the others.

Shut down

These recommendations had to do with setting boundaries for work in terms of both locations and times. We named this category “shut down” because of the prevalence of suggestions to turn off devices outside the workday. The most popular recommendations were to limit the amount of work done at home, to schedule an end of the workday and stop working at that time, and to honor time at home by shutting off or removing work apps (such as DoJo, Remind, and email) from personal phones. Teachers also suggested leaving the classroom when students are not present; intentionally setting aside time for family; limiting work on the weekend; and using time at home to purposefully refuel, recharge, and practice self-care.

Be human

No one is perfect. Everyone makes mistakes, has bad days, or has a lesson that flops. These recommendations focus on the need for teachers to understand this aspect of their own humanity. All professional educators can benefit from the ability to acknowledge these challenges and shortcomings, forgive themselves, and move on. Teachers should give themselves grace, acceptance, forgiveness, and love. School leaders and mentors can help remind teachers that they are doing the best they can, they cannot control everything, and that they are allowed to make mistakes. A major role of a mentor is to provide a safe place for young teachers to share their mistakes and challenges without fear of reprimand or job loss.

A major role of a mentor is to provide a safe place for young teachers to share their mistakes and challenges without fear of reprimand or job loss.

Prioritize and say no

Members of the WTMC cohort recognized that all educators have an overwhelming workload. In the face of this, they encourage educators to tackle high-priority tasks and get comfortable saying no to those that are not a high priority. The mentor fellows recommend making a priority list of tasks and outlining a time frame for their completion. This approach can help alleviate teachers’ stress by serving as a structured plan for accomplishing the most important things in a timely manner.

In addition, there are times when professionals have to say no to certain commitments, responsibilities, and obligations. Each person only has so much capacity; if something doesn’t fit on the plate, it has to go. It can be challenging, especially for young professionals, to know when and how to tell the boss they cannot do something. However, doing so can help educators be more productive and experience more joy and fulfillment in their regular responsibilities.

Additional insights

Some additional ideas that the fellows found valuable didn’t fit into those categories.

• Exploring options. Sometimes, the school or community is not a good fit and a change is healthy. In those situations, educators should give themselves permission to explore teaching in another grade level within the same school, at another school in the same district, or in a new community. Additionally, new teachers should give themselves permission to explore options outside teaching, because a different career path may fit better.
• Finding a sounding board. New teachers should find a trusted person, whether inside or outside of school, with whom they can share successes and frustrations, explore ideas, and talk about mistakes or failures. A trusted mentor, who is not in a supervisory role, can fill this need for early-career educators.
• Gathering resources. New teachers should not be afraid to use resources others have created to lighten the workload. A vast array of lesson plans, artifacts, quizzes, tests, and other education material are available online. Teachers should talk to each other about what they are teaching and share materials within the school.
• Starting fresh. Teachers must remember that tomorrow is a new day and a chance to begin anew. After a tough day, it’s possible to reset, recharge, and move forward with new ideas and new energy.

Recommendations for systems and school leaders

Additionally, we invited members of the WTMC cohort to follow the same process in making recommendations to school systems and school leaders, and we collected and analyzed the results following the same methodology. These were their suggestions:

Choose priorities carefully

One of the most common suggestions for school leaders was to prioritize the most important things. Cohort members ask, “If everything is critical, what is the second most important thing?” Having too many priorities can lead to confusion and disconnection among teachers. Teachers only have so much time in the day; if school leaders are continually prioritizing and reprioritizing programs, ideas, and events, teachers will be spread too thin and not be able to focus on their most important work.

Improve communication

Teachers need and want to know what is going in their schools and communities. School leaders can improve communication by sharing information about staffing decisions and budget realities. Teachers recognize that there are limitations to what can be shared about personnel, but when school leaders provide more transparency, it helps the teachers feel better connected to the system.

Design the system and structures intentionally

Another thing school leaders can do to support teachers’ work-life balance is to make sure the goals of the school are clearly defined and articulated. Teachers want to know what they are trying to accomplish and to be a part of establishing and reaching those goals. School leaders can also build in time for collaboration that allows teachers to plan together and to review student learning. Redesign of existing systems and structures can occur thoughtfully, to allow more people to share the heavy load of school leadership.

An individual and team effort

These ideas are only useful if teachers are able to put them into practice. Journaling or other forms of writing may help teachers maintain focus on their boundaries, remind themselves of why they committed to work-life balance, and re-establish that commitment when they don’t keep to their decisions. Individual teachers may benefit from partnering with a colleague to help them keep their commitment to, for example, leave at the end of contract hours instead of staying in the building after hours. It also may be helpful to communicate boundaries to parents, colleagues, and administrators. But they should be ready for others to push back against these changes.

Administrators also need to recognize that life outside of the four walls of the classroom has value and merit. Educators are not teachers first — they are humans first. They have lives, families, commitments, responsibilities, and priorities outside school. Teachers need to feel confident that their choices to ensure their own work-life balance will not negatively impact their job security, and administrators can work to ensure a school climate that supports this. When early-career educators feel that they are supported in balancing all of the responsibilities they have, both personally and professionally, they will be more effective in the classroom and more likely to remain in the profession.

References

BoMentis Coaching. (2019, February 24). Mentors core competencies. [Video] YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NcObsBbauGI

Center for Mentoring Excellence. (2017, November 1). Your mentoring year tip #8: Giving feedback.

Durbin, D.R., House, S.C., Meagher, E.A., & Rogers, J. G. (2019). The role of mentors in addressing issues of work-life integration in an academic research environment. Journal of Clinical and Translational Science, 3 (6), 302-307.

Eller, L.S., Lev, E.L., & Feurer, A. (2014). Key components of an effective mentoring relationship: A qualitative study. Nurse Education Today, 34 (5), 815-820.

Institute for Clinical and Translational Research. (2023). Mentors: Best practices for giving feedback. University of Wisconsin-Madison.

National Institute for Excellence in Teaching. (2021). Why new teacher mentoring falls short, and how to fix it: Findings from Louisiana and Texas mentor programs.

Perkins, M. (2022). Teacher attrition in Wyoming: Factors to consider. University of Wyoming & Wyoming Education Association.

Pfund, C., House, S., Spencer, K., Asquith, P., Carney, P., Masters, K. S., . . . Flemming, M. (2012). A research mentor training curriculum for clinical and transitional researchers. Clinical and Translational Science, 6 (1), 26-33.

Raue, K., Gray, L., & O’Rear, I. (2015). Career paths of public school teachers: Results from the first wave through fifth waves of the 2007-2008 beginning teacher longitudinal study. Statistics in Brief.

Service Center of Excellence. (2018). Mentor session guide: Work-life balance. University of North Carolina.

Southern Regional Education Board. (2018). Mentoring new teachers: A fresh look.

Woolworth, R. (2019, August 8). Great mentors focus on the whole person, not just their career. Harvard Business Review.

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This article appears in the February 2024 issue of Kappan, Vol. 105, No. 5, pp. 54-57.