My View
The Moment I Knew I Needed Help
BY DAVID S. YOUNCE/School Administrator, January 2022

I VIVIDLY RECALL processing the moment in my car. I felt compelled to pull over. Then I burst into tears. Me. A superintendent, former principal and high school football coach with a long beard. I am supposed to be tough. People like me don’t cry. We suck it up and lead, whatever the situation. We stand firm, modeling our resolve for others.

A school superintendent’s work creates the conditions for students to thrive, educators to teach to their fullest, school leaders to lead, parents to feel connected and school board members to govern well. Talking to superintendents across the country, I have been struck not by the uniqueness of individual circumstances but rather by the mirror my colleagues hold up that directly reflects my own experiences back to me. These are tough times for school leaders everywhere.

Today, we face divided publics, beleaguered boards, struggling leaders and educators attempting to ensure learning, safety and personal health, and students experiencing visible and invisible trauma — each and every day. What has been notable is that schools this year missed out on the traditional “honeymoon period” that occurs each fall. 

In my professional experience, so-called “February issues” usually indicate an exhausted school population in desperate need of a break. This fall, February issues were in full force — in September. What does that mean? It means the people in our schools and communities are struggling more than ever.

It keeps me up at night to know that those I am responsible for are those who are struggling. In sleepless moments, and in that moment on the side of the road, I realized that failing to emotionally care for myself renders me unavailable to care for others. Think of the airline safety speeches before every flight where we are reminded to tend to our own air masks before helping others. I needed to put on my mask.

Professional Help

I wasn’t seeking to solve any one particular crisis, but my instincts told me I needed to become more grounded and aware to make sense of the ways that my life experiences and responsibilities impact my social-emotional and mental health. I decided to connect with a therapist (virtually due to the COVID-19 pandemic) and began talking regularly to someone who was professionally impartial about my experiences.

Talk therapy helped me to unlock my thinking and sort out my responses to situations far better than I had ever been able to do independently. Therapy reflected the words and support that I often offer others back onto my own personal narrative. It provided a different lens for the times when I question myself. It helped me to make sense of my thoughts and my circumstances. It ultimately helped me to better understand me.

It is difficult, healthy, ongoing work. You should consider it. You won’t regret it.

Prioritizing Self-Care

As leaders, we solve problems. We are predisposed toward strategy and action in the service of others. We search for the one simple thing that we can do tomorrow to help. 

My advice for you is that you stop navigating the challenges of life and leadership alone. Seek impartial support. Regardless of how together you appear to be keeping things, I believe that you — yes you, school leader — can benefit from talk therapy or counseling.

As school leaders, we must prioritize our own emotional health, probably now more than ever. If you do, you just may find you don’t have to pretend anymore that you have it all together.

That’s always been the most exhausting part. Take it from the guy who cried on the side of the road.

DAVID YOUNCE is superintendent of the Mill River Unified Union School District in North Clarendon, Vt. Twitter: @MillRiverSchls