Blazing New Trails - Connexions

Special Education Director Burnout in Montana 91
provide a means of connecting educational excellence and equity for children with
disabilities. The complex environmental conditions, such as role ambiguity and litigious
conflict, and organizational climates focusing limited resources on standardized achievement
are not likely to change. Yet, as suggested by the findings here, they may not need to change
in order to curtail job-related burnout. Given a system of three dimensions of burnout,
personal accomplishment may be the leverage point. Specifically, rather than attempting to
change complex environmental and organizational factors decreasing the perceived levels of
emotional exhaustion and depersonalization, it may be effective to raise the perceived level of
personal accomplishment, and in doing so, prevent burnout by strengthening self-efficacy and
purpose.
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