Measuring What Matters: Mental Health ROI for Teachers and Staff in Education
In 2024, 60% of K–12 teachers said they felt burned out, and 59% reported frequent job‑related stress, according to RAND’s State of the American Teacher survey. Those numbers are more than data points—they’re lived experiences that show up as tears in a parking lot before first period or a counselor’s sleepless night after juggling crisis interventions. Education is a calling, but the mental and emotional demands of the field can have significant impacts on a person’s health, sense of purpose, and job satisfaction.
Employers—districts, charter networks, universities, and community colleges—all have a responsibility and an opportunity to respond. When employers consider personalized, human-centered support a strategic investment, they can do so much more than improve employee mental health. They can achieve outcomes that impact students, families, and communities, too.
The top mental health challenges in the education sector
Burnout and compassion fatigue
Educators hold space for students’ needs—academic, social, and often deeply personal. They carry these concerns home, too. Over time, continuous caregiving can turn into compassion fatigue in teachers, impacting their wellbeing and how they show up at work and at home.
Stress and anxiety
Performance pressures, behavioral management, safety concerns, and policy shifts add to already full workloads and calendars. Administrators and support staff feel it, too. They navigate other ongoing challenges, from compliance and funding constraints to community expectations.
Depression and isolation
Without convenient access to mental health support, many educators never even have the opportunity to get the help they want and need. Rural educators, adjunct faculty, and paraprofessionals may feel especially isolated given their work location and the nature of their job roles.
Work–life imbalance
Lesson planning, grading, and family outreach don’t stop when the afternoon bell rings, and with teacher shortages, work continues to pile up. Nights and weekends are often spent on time-consuming but necessary tasks. It’s becoming increasingly difficult for teachers to take the time they need and deserve to fully recover from a workweek.
Secondary trauma
Teachers, counselors, and staff aren’t just teaching and managing their school community. They regularly encounter emotionally difficult situations—students coping with grief, abuse, food insecurity, or community violence. In many areas, exposure to these situations is recurring. Teachers left to carry on without the right form of ongoing, personalized support can experience symptoms that mirror PTSD.
Why these challenges matter to employers
Mental health isn’t just an individual wellness concern, especially in education. Let’s take a closer look at how teacher and staff mental health and wellbeing can impact students and an entire campus community.
Absenteeism
Absenteeism is a growing concern in education, not only because of its financial cost but also because of its implications for student learning. Chronic stress drives sick days and on‑the‑job disengagement. Absenteeism can impact the workload for other teachers and staff members and make it difficult for students to get the help they need when they need it.
Turnover costs
Recruiting, onboarding, and covering vacancies strain budgets. The Learning Policy Institute estimates that in large districts, replacing a teacher costs an average of $25,000. And when teachers resign after just a few years in the field, the loss is significant.
Morale and culture
When adults are burned out and experiencing significant stress, the classroom climate and student outcomes also suffer. In fact, a study from Frontiers in Psychology found that reductions in teachers' self-reported distress and burnout were related to students' improved perceptions of their teachers' support in the classroom. And reductions in teachers' personal and work-related burnout correlated with greater increases of academic self-perception in students, too.
Regardless of their work location or setting, everyone in the education field deserves personalized, human-centered mental health support. Support that meets their unique needs and helps them show up better for their school community.
The power of the right mental health partner
The challenges that teachers and staff face can be overcome when districts and universities choose the right mental health partner—one built around bell schedules, academic calendars, and classroom and industry realities. The right partner understands the nuances of the education field and is committed to offering a comprehensive program that can deliver support and care people will actually use.
So, what does the right partner have to offer?
Designed for the school day. Early‑morning, after‑school, evening, and weekend availability so employees can book support outside classroom time, with summer access that doesn’t lapse.
Proactive, calendar-aligned outreach. Proactive outreach before high‑stress periods, such as the start of school, testing windows, parent‑teacher conferences, year‑end, grant applications—so help is visible when demand spikes.
Rapid response to critical incidents. Same‑day consults and expedited counseling following crises, with trauma‑informed clinicians who understand school environments.
Experienced, culturally responsive providers. A network that serves teachers, paraprofessionals, bus drivers, food service, and administrators—and understands the pressures unique to education.
Simple pathways to care. One‑click scheduling, personalized navigation, multiple care pathways, and warm handoffs from HR or school leaders reduce friction and increase follow‑through for employee assistance programs for teachers.
Training and support for leaders. Consultation and micro‑trainings that show how schools can support staff mental health, strengthen psychological safety in education workplaces, and equip teams with practical educator stress management strategies.
Digital tools that fit real life. Brief, evidence‑based modules for self‑care between classes, plus guided programs that complement counseling.
Integrated, confidential, and data‑informed. Clear referral pathways to district or university benefits and community resources, strict confidentiality, and de‑identified reporting that informs strategic decision-making.
When these elements come together, employees are encouraged to seek help sooner, trust and engagement grow, and students have more opportunities to reach their full potential, too.
Proving the value: mental health ROI in education
Mental health benefits used to be viewed as a nice-to-have, a box that needed to be checked. But today, education leaders recognize that investing in teacher and staff wellness programs has a meaningful impact on everyone.
The value is not in utilization rates or the number of therapy sessions an individual attends. The value is in outcomes, which translate to dollars and time saved—and more importantly—lives impacted. Moments where teachers, faculty, and staff receive the support they need and deserve, so students and families receive the support they need and deserve.
Our peer-reviewed study, based on health and productivity outcomes of 8,020 CuraLinc EAP participants from 217 different employers in the education industry, found that after treatment with CuraLinc’s EAP:
79% of education employees with anxiety recovered to no longer be at risk
88% of education employees with depression recovered to no longer be at risk
74% of education employees at risk for alcohol misuse recovered to no longer be at risk
Education employees who had a work productivity problem recouped an average of 38.23 hours per month after treatment
These aren’t just people who got better. They’re also a return on investment—the result of taking a proactive approach to mental health with the right partner.
Learn how one CuraLinc client in the education sector achieved a ROI of $8.43:1 and saved nearly $2.5M.
Putting ROI to work for your teachers, faculty, and staff
When mental health support works for educators, learning works for students. The ROI that matters in schools is time returned to classrooms, crises de-escalated sooner, fewer avoidable leaves, and stronger connections with students and families. Those outcomes will build across a semester, a school year, and a community.
As you evaluate partners, prioritize alignment with the needs of the education sector.
24/7 in-the-moment support from a licensed professional
Personalized benefits navigation
Multiple care pathways, emphasizing choice and preferences
Proactive, calendar-aligned outreach
Rapid critical incident response
Confidentiality and decision-ready reporting
The right mental health program should prove value you can feel and measure—support that honors the people who make schools work and results you can proudly stand behind.