Hello, and welcome back to Season Two of the Educator Wellness Revolution! We hope you had a great summer!

As we gear up for our next season of the show, Scott and Gracy check in about practicing wellness this summer, the stress and beauty of the back-to-school transition, and what we are excited about for our educator wellness work at EmpowerEd this year.

We also discuss a few of our upcoming episodes for this next season, such as:

1. The confluence between educator advocacy and wellness work

2. Exploring longevity in teaching

3. Inclusion and educator wellness

4. A two part episode on liberation and safety in schools, including exploring the connection between police-free schools and community schools

We'd love to hear your feedback on what other topics you'd like us to explore this season and guests you'd like for us to invite on the show. Hope it's a great start of the school year for you!

Thank you for listening! Please learn more about our educator wellness work in schools at or email [email protected]

We are so excited to share the last episode of our first season with you on a topic that couldn't be more important to educator wellness: the harmful discourse on anti-Critical Race Theory in education and increasing incidents of book bans on topics of diversity and inclusion in schools in the United States.

Sadly, we find ourselves in a moment of incredible political divisiveness where the history and realities of marginalized communities in our world are being leveraged to deepen divides and win elections. As these battles increase, the well-being of educators, especially educators of color, is being harmed and we are at risk of the situation getting even worse.

In this deeply insightful panel conversation, we discuss the difficult situations that many educators find themselves in states with anti-CRT legislations, how these attacks on CRT and the book bans are particularly impacting Black educators' wellness, and the ways educators can deepen their wellness through resistance and community.

Our panel includes:

- De'Ana Forbes, a U.S. history and social studies teacher in Northern Virginia who has been featured for her curriculum during Black Lives Matter Week

- Colin Brown, a history and social studies teacher in Texas who teaches under a current anti-CRT legislation in his state

- Vanessa Williams (she/her/hers), a former social studies teacher is the program manager for D.C. Area Educators for Social Justice a project of Teaching for Change

- Gabrielle Dubose, a 30-year veteran educator and Lead Teacher Organizer for EmpowerEd

Links from Teaching for Change:

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We recognize that we're closing out our season on a big conversation. We hope you take the summer to keep thinking about ways to increase equity and wellness for educators and the students and families they serve. We've learned that it's only in our willingness to have difficult conversations that we can create real wins for our teachers and schools.

With that, we'll say goodbye for now! We'll be back later in the summer to begin our second season on all topics related to education wellness. Please feel free to reach out to [email protected] if you have any ideas for future episodes or guests. We'd love to hear them!

Thanks again! Have a great summer!

Thank you for listening! Please learn more about our educator wellness work in schools at or email [email protected]

Modern workplaces are becoming more flexible, but many educators are being left out of this new way to balance work and life. Especially as more and more teachers are burning out, it's becoming clear that it's not IF flexible scheduling for educators will happen but HOW.  

In this podcast episode, we dive into the "how." With the help of DC-based educators and EmpowerEd follows Rian Reed (Kramer MS) and Lucia Appelquist (Columbia Heights Educational Campus) we discuss the many ways to make flexible scheduling work for educators, students and families. Rian and Lucia share their vision for how increased flexible scheduling would support them and their students, and respond to the most common criticisms of making education more flexible for everyone.   

Specifically, we talk about: 

- The different models of flexible scheduling that schools could try.  

- How flexible scheduling would increase community involvement in schools. 

- Why funding is really important to make flexible scheduling work well.  

- And much more!  

If you'd like to learn more about flexible scheduling, EmpowerEd has done some important research on different models that can be right for each school. Please see: www.weareempowered.org/flexiblescheduling

Thank you for listening! Please learn more about our educator wellness work in schools at or email [email protected]

Sadly, we've seen an uptick in traumatic events with many of our school partners in Washington, DC. More and more, learning to heal from trauma as a school is becoming a requisite for educator wellness.   

For this, we were grateful to speak with Dr. Danielle Palmer and Monique Leopold, co-founders of Bridges Mental Health, a mental health consulting agency that supports DC schools. Their school healing work comes from a lot of lived experience - Danielle worked for many years as a school clinician and Monique still works full time as a School Psychologist in DC public schools in addition to running Bridges.  

In our conversation, they walk us through the timeline of how a school would ideally handle a traumatic incident so it can address both student and staff wellness. They also help us to make important connections between the immediate interventions that should happen after a traumatic event and the ongoing attention to staff wellness within a school environment.  

We also discuss:   

- The ideal way for school leadership to respond during moments of crisis. 

- What wellness practices can help a school staff grow closer together during difficult moments (and also what could divide everyone). 

- The important ways they maintain hope when they meet opposition in their work.  

-  And much more!  

We hope this conversation can support you during any difficult moments at your school and can help inspire the important healing these challenging situations can bring when they are met with wellness.

Thank you for listening! Please learn more about our educator wellness work in schools at or email [email protected]

With an abundance of wellness challenges and a lack of qualified clinicians, what are schools supposed to do? How can we ensure both student and staff wellness needs are getting met within a learning community?

In this episode, we speak with wellnesses coordinators Johanna Ulseth of Briya PCS and Jacqueline Baron of Digital Pioneers Academy PCS, both in Washington, DC, on the role of a school wellness coordinator and why they are becoming more popular these days.

We discuss:

- the difference between a clinician and a wellness coordinator.

- how student and staff wellness initiatives can work together.

- how to care for school staff when there are varying ideas of wellness.

And much more!

We hope this episode expands your view of what a wellness coordinator can do for whole school wellness!

Thank you for listening! Please learn more about our educator wellness work in schools at or email [email protected]

From working with our partner schools, we know how much challenging student behavior is influencing teacher wellness these days. The ongoing effects of COVID has affected the way many students are interacting within their school communities and the impact of challenging behavior is real.  

For this, in our sixth episode we speak with child behavior specialist Alexandra Vann of Building Capacity, LLC about ways to meaningfully address student behavior concerns while caring for yourself as an educator.  

Over the last 10 years, Alexandra has provided positive behavior support to elementary and secondary students within the public and private educational setting as a Child Behavior and Intervention Specialist. While helping to support the success of students, Alex has consulted and coached leaders, educators, and caregivers in mental and behavioral health strategies.  

Together, we discuss: 

- The difference between a student's behavior and their attitude (not the same thing!) 

- What to do when teachers within a school have different approaches to student behavior interventions 

- How to "go upstream' to get the full picture of what is happening with a student (and yourself)

 - and much more!  We hope you enjoy this conversation and that it helps your approach to student behavior!  

*** More about Alexandra Vann:  As an expert in the field of Child Behavior Services, Alexandra Vann  has been afforded the opportunity to work with outstanding educators, administrators, school members, leaders,  students, and families from diverse cultures and backgrounds.      

 Over the last 10 years, Alex has provided positive behavior support to elementary and secondary students within the public and private educational setting as a Child Behavior and Intervention Specialist. While helping to support the success of students, Alex has consulted and coached leaders, educators, and caregivers in mental and behavioral health strategies.  Alexandra is the founder of Building Capacity, LLC and currently consults for The George Washington University and Mary’s Center for School Based Mental Health support and programming. Alex co-facilitates Crisis Response & Intervention and Suicide Prevention practice group, in addition to Teacher Wellness workgroup for the Community of Practice under the Center for Health and Health Care in Schools at GWU.  In addition to supporting GWU, Alex also supports and assists with the development of the School Based Mental Health Post Graduate Fellowship Program at Mary’s Center.

Thank you for listening! Please learn more about our educator wellness work in schools at or email [email protected]

We all know school principals are responsible for a lot but how does this workload influence their self-care and the wellness of their staff? How can a spirit of true inclusion–both for students and teachers–create a school culture that promotes wellness rather than furthering burnout?

These are some of the questions we explored with educator Toni Barton, a former DC principal, charter network executive, and the visionary of the Spelligent inclusive school model. She shared her experience of running DC schools and her bigger vision for creating a school based on connection for both students and staff.

We also discussed:

- Why it's important for principals to be vulnerable with their staff members.

- Innovative ways to reduce the workload for school principals.

- How to hire for mindset rather than expertise to create a unified teaching team.

- and more.

We loved this conversation and hope Toni's vision helps to inspire you as well!

Thank you for listening! Please learn more about our educator wellness work in schools at or email [email protected]

As a teacher, are you wavering between drowning and burning out with all the demands on your time and energy? Do you think more self-care might help you but don't know how to start approaching it?  

In this conversation, award-winning DCPS World Language teacher Chiara Monticelli shares about a period of overwhelm in her life and how this difficult time helped her begin recognizing and acting from her self-care needs.   

We also discuss: 

- The particular "human giver" demands on teachers who are parents and how flexible scheduling can help.  

- How "breaking the rules" by having a deskless classroom and using more non-evaluative feedback with students can give teachers more energy. 

- Perfectionism and how it causes more stress for teachers.  

- And much more.  

We hope this conversation gives you new energy and permission to focus on your self-care as we enter this new year!

Thank you for listening! Please learn more about our educator wellness work in schools at or email [email protected]

In this episode, we speak with Instructional Coach Claire Shanahan and ELL Resource Teacher Catherine Heisy from Ida B. Wells MS in Washington, DC on creating a staff-led PD schedule that encourages shared teacher expertise and strengthens relationships between educators.   

Specifically we discuss: 

- How "Thinking Thursdays" (and soon "Wellness Wednesdays") came to be at Ida B. Wells. 

- Why staff-led PD can be a place for more open, curious learning than traditional PD's.  

- Ways to find the right balance of planning ahead and staying flexible to changing needs. 

- And more!  

We hope this conversation encourages you to consider more staff-led PD to feature the teacher expertise in your school!

Thank you for listening! Please learn more about our educator wellness work in schools at or email [email protected]

In this episode, we speak with Yazid Jackson from Restorative DC / School Talk DC about what it means to create a restorative adult culture in schools. 

Specifically, we discuss: 

- why adults need to model restorative practices for it to work with students. 

- the difference between venting our difficulties and actual restorative practice. 

- how to address the lack of time in the day to do restorative adult work. 

- and much more.

We hope you enjoy this inspiring conversation and that it sparks more restorative practices in your school communities!

Thank you for listening! Please learn more about our educator wellness work in schools at or email [email protected]