I will put the research on why school relationships matter below, but here are just a few of the time my front office and custodial colleagues saved me:

Don’t believe me? Here are just a few times where the front office and custodial staff saved me:

• The year I had a student who, when mad, would intentionally pee on themselves and the floor. The custodian was in my room a few times a week doing a job I would wish on no one. And she never, ever, once dawdled or avoided it by, for example, stating that she had been abducted by aliens, which I would have done in her shoes.
• The time a student punched out a window with their fist and there was blood, glass, and more on the floor. The custodial staff, front office staff, and nursing staff are what saved the day.
• The time a student gave me lice right before I moved and the school nurse checked my head multiple times to make sure I didn’t take lice with me in the moving truck. I will never have enough thank yous for that.
• The many times I decided, despite prior warnings from the custodial staff,  that glitter was a good idea to use on a carpet and made the worst mess ever. Until the next time I forgot  and did it again.
• The time I showed up at work really, really sick and the nurse took care of me.
• The  month that a parent wanted me fired really, really badly and called up and yelled at the front office staff when they couldn’t yell at me– and the staff screened the calls so I could teach.
• The million and one times that the front office staff made the tricky calls on when drop in visitors were worth calling me to the office right away or should wait until  the end of the period– and took the heat for it if the wait was too long.
• The times I called protective services and the front office staff and administration covered for me and said it wasn’t me– and were screamed at in my place. 
• All of the times that folks wanted records and the staff had to copy the one million page special education files and then, even worse, try to get them back in the too small confidential envelopes.
• The time something went very, very wrong with a pickup and the front office staff figured it out first and kept the student safe.
• The time the mean custodian stole my chairs and the nice custodian went against her and stole them back.
• The times my students ate all of my pencils and erasers (sadly, not figuratively) and the front office staff, despite our lack of supplies, still somehow found me more.

In every case, the front office staff, custodial staff, and nursing staff went above and beyond for me– not just my students. The relationships that I built with them became one of the highlights of my day. I got to be the first one to know what was really going down at the school and in the community. And I learned to wear eyeliner. My front office staff did an amazing job of conditioning me Pavlov style to wear eyeliner. When I did, I got compliments on how good I looked. When I didn’t, I got  a lot of questions about whether I was tired and if I was sleeping enough. A few months of this and I became someone who actually took time in the morning to look nice for work. I believe that was what they were most proud of– slowly edging me from the just out of bed disaster I was into the I at least brushed my hair, less large disaster I became. 

In any case, my advice remains say hi. Build time into your schedule to greet everyone, not just your co-teachers. Create the school you want to be at– and be someone others can trust and might help out in a bind.

 There are a lot of reasons why teachers stay in the profession– and a lot of reasons why they exit either their school or the field. But one of the key ones which doesn’t get talked about enough is having a sense of community at the school. Here is the research proof of why relationships and school climate matters.

• Teachers who report having more teacher networks and opportunities to collaborate are significantly less likely to exit the field (Borman & Dowling, 2008).
• Teachers who feel more lonely at work are less satisfied with their jobs. Teachers who feel a sense of social companionship at work feel more satisfied (Tabancali, 2016) .
• Teachers who feel less under attack by the community and parents are less likely to quit (Dahlkamp et al., 2017) (slightly different, but also so interesting)
• “The conditions in which teachers work matter a great deal to them and, ultimately, to their students. Teachers are more satisfied and plan to stay longer in schools that have a positive work context, independent of the school‘s student demographic characteristics. Furthermore, although a wide range of working conditions matter to teachers, the specific elements of the work environment that matter the most to teachers are not narrowly conceived working conditions such as clean and well-maintained facilities or access to modern instructional technology. Instead, it is the social conditions—the school‘s culture, the principal‘s leadership, and relationships among colleagues—that predominate in predicting teachers‘ job satisfaction and career plans. More importantly, providing a supportive context in which teachers can work appears to contribute to improved student achievement. We find that favorable conditions of work predict higher rates of student academic growth, even when we compare schools serving demographically similar groups of students.” (Johnson et al., 2012)
• Teachers who feel like they work in a cooperative environment with other staff are more satisfied at work (Toropova et al., 2021)
• “Using data on over 50,000 teachers from 34 different countries, and controlling for the effects of teacher age, gender, qualifications and experience, the research shows that more cooperation between teachers and more effective professional development is associated with increased teacher job satisfaction. Increased teacher cooperation is also associated with reduced odds that teachers want to move school” (Sims, 2017)
• Teachers who don’t feel they belong at work are more emotionally exhausted, burned out, and more likely to think about leaving the field (Skaalvik & Skaalvik, 2011)

The conclusion? School community matters. When you work at a place where you feel like you belong, you can weather the hard stuff easier. When you feel like you don’t belong and are out on a limb by yourself, you are more likely to burn out.

So help create the environment you want to be in. Start by saying hi 🙂

• Borman, G. D., & Dowling, N. M. (2008). Teacher attrition and retention: A meta-analytic and narrative review of the research. Review of educational research, 78(3), 367-409.
• Dahlkamp, S., Peters, M., & Schumacher, G. (2017). Principal self-efficacy, school climate, and teacher retention: A multi-level analysis. Alberta Journal of Educational Research, 63(4), 357-376.
• Johnson, S. M., Kraft, M. A., & Papay, J. P. (2012). How context matters in high-need schools: The effects of teachers’ working conditions on their professional satisfaction and their students’ achievement. Teachers college record, 114(10), 1-39.
• Sims, S. (2017). TALIS 2013: Working conditions, teacher job satisfaction and retention (Department for Education Statistical Working Paper). London: Department of Education.
• Skaalvik, E. M., & Skaalvik, S. (2011). Teacher job satisfaction and motivation to leave the teaching profession: Relations with school context, feeling of belonging, and emotional exhaustion. Teaching and teacher education, 27(6), 1029-1038.
• Tabancali, E. (2016). The relationship between teachers’ job satisfaction and loneliness at the workplace. Eurasian Journal of Educational Research, 66, 263- 280, http://dx.doi.org/10.14689/ejer.2016.66.15 
• Toropova, A., Myrberg, E., & Johansson, S. (2021). Teacher job satisfaction: the importance of school working conditions and teacher characteristics. Educational review, 73(1), 71-97.