Dealing With Students' Mental Health Is Exacerbating Teachers' Own Challenges

Teachers shoulder an increasing load for students’ mental health and well-being, taking up instructional time and putting educators themselves at risk of burning out, according to a new study.

Nearly 60% of teachers say they spent more time supporting students’ and families’ mental health and well-being in 2025-26 than they did in fall 2024, adding to a higher overall workload, according to a new nationwide survey of nearly 900 K-12 public school teachers released Wednesday

by the research group RAND Corp.

Mental health and behavior support services take up eight hours of teachers’ time every school week, within and outside of teachers’ contract hours. (RAND does not have a comparative data point for prior to the 2025-26 school year.)

Mental illnesses, absenteeism, apathy, and low parent involvement all take a toll: A majority of K-12 teachers reported student well-being issues now pose moderate to severe problems for their instruction, RAND found.

“The challenges are becoming more pervasive in schools, so they feel more responsibility to meet the needs,” said Ashley Woo, a co-author of the study. Teachers report students coming to school with more, and more severe, behavioral and mental health problems, Woo said.

In most schools, counselors and psychologists juggle up to twice the recommended ratio

of students—leaving teachers to pick up the slack for students waiting for additional help. “We see teachers stepping into those roles precisely because they are often finding themselves in a context where, where kids are lacking access to that specialized care,” she said.

Taking an emotional toll on teachers

RAND found that providing these supports can take a toll on teachers. Among K-12 teachers, 96% described their jobs as “emotionally draining,” compared to little more than half of similarly educated professionals in other fields. (RAND compared teacher responses to a nationally representative group of nearly 500 similarly educated working adults in the 2026 American Life Panel survey.)

Among teachers who strongly believed teaching had an emotional cost, 70% reported frequent job stress and symptoms of burnout, and only 16% planned to stay in the classroom long-term.

Teachers who provided more mental health and behavior help to students and their families were significantly more likely to report that teaching had high emotional costs, and they had a higher risk of burning out on the job.

The issue has emerged as a priority for the national teachers’ unions.

Jen Mazzocco, a Pennsylvania state Democrat representative and former English teacher in Pittsburgh, called for more state and federal support

for teacher and student mental health services at the American Federation of Teachers annual convention in July, where the union prioritized mental health issues

advocacy this year.

“We use our lunch periods to translate materials for our English-language learners or to finish writing our IEPs. We spend our prep time consoling students so that they can make it through the day,” Mazzocco said then. “We should not be expected to solve these problems alone.”

On the other hand, teachers in strong, supportive school communities can have lower stress and burnout levels even when they face heavy workloads , according to Andreas Schleicher, director for education and skills at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, who has studied teacher workforce issues internationally.

“A lot of this really comes down to the quality of relationships: where teachers relate well to their students ... where their relationships with parents are strong, where teachers feel they have a principal who builds great teams at work and is actually focusing on instructional leadership,” Schleicher said. “It’s not rocket science to ensure teachers can do their work well and feel supported in their work.”