The RAND Corporation's 2026 State of the American Teacher survey found that 55 percent of K-12 public school teachers reported frequent job-related stress. Among college-educated working adults in other jobs, the figure was 34 percent. Teachers have reported more stress than college-educated adults in other jobs every year since 2021.
Eighteen percent of teachers said they were likely to leave their current job by the end of the 2025-26 school year. Managing student behavior was the source of stress they named most often, at 52 percent.
For a child, that means the adult in the room is carrying more strain than other working adults, and the source teachers name most often is responding to children's behavior. That is why our work centers daily rhythms for co-regulation, repair when harm happens, movement, and emotional skill building.