Occupational Stress and Wellness of Teachers in an Urban School District

The existing literature on teachers’ wellness examines wellness of teachers abroad (Kittel & Leynen, 2003; Rasku & Kinnunen, 2003; Verhoeven et al., 2003) and holistic wellness and student teachers or beginning (Exp.years) teachers (Harwell & Daniel, 2012; Watson et al., 2010). These studies utilize quantitative designs and focus on elementary and middle schools and/or predominantly White female teachers. There is limited literature on the wellness of teachers of color working in high-poverty, minimally achieving, urban schools. A mixed-methods design was used to identify teachers’ holistic wellness highlighted by the revised version of the Five Factor Wellness (FFWEL-A2) inventory (Myers & Sweeny, 2005) and teachers’ perceptions of how their wellness is impacted by their positions as educators. Specifically, I addressed the limited literature on teacher wellness by surveying teachers in 20 schools in an urban district that were identified as not meeting Annual Yearly Progress (AYP) in 2011 and having 2012-2014 College and Career Readiness Performance Index (CCRPI) achievement points less than 45. Results indicated teachers’ wellness is impacted by their roles as educators and teachers’ perceive the stress of the profession to have an impact on their wellness