Strong Enough to Break: Recognizing and Reducing High-Functioning Burnout in Special Education Leadership
(Room 555B)
13 Nov 26
10:15 AM
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11:15 AM
Tracks:
Staff Wellness: Fostering Resilience
This session acknowledges a challenge that is often acknowledged although rarely addressed in our field: special education administrators are likely to be the most high‑functioning burned‑out individuals, resulting in threats to the stability of special education systems. While often discussed in relation to retention of teachers and support staff, high‑functioning burnout is equally prevalent among special education administrators, who shoulder constant decision‑making responsibilities, crisis mitigation, and emotional labor. These leaders continue to perform at a high level even as exhaustion, depletion, and diminishing capacity quietly take hold. By the time the warning signs surface, the impact on leadership sustainability, staff morale, and student outcomes can be significant. Given that leadership wellness directly influences staff stability and student outcomes, addressing high‑functioning burnout is essential for systemwide success. Supporting staff and students begins with supporting ourselves. Drawing from the research in high-functioning burnout and acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT), this session introduces an innovative, systems‑aligned framework and tools that integrates wellness‑aligned supervision, early‑warning indicators, and leader‑specific action practices in the form of a practical, evidence-based framework for recognizing, preventing, and responding to high‑functioning burnout in their teams and in themselves. Participants will explore the behavioral and organizational indicators of high-functioning burnout, examine the systemic conditions that allow it to grow, and learn actionable leadership strategies that promote sustainable workloads, psychological safety, and resilient teams. In addition to embedded question and answer opportunities, administrators will leave with resources they can implement to strengthen their own and staff wellness, improve retention, and sustain their own leadership capacity.