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Many pupils who experience distress and emotional difficulties are left untreated because of the shortage of mental health professionals at schools. This study aims to explore a brief psycho-educational intervention based on school psychologist–teacher cooperation aimed at closing this treatment gap.

With a randomized controlled methodology, 79 preschools to 12th grade teachers were asked to lead a brief psycho-educational intervention with one of their pupils. A second pupil was assigned to a waiting list (control group). Each teacher and one of her/his colleagues filled a Pupil Adjustment questionnaire, being developed for this study, before and after the intervention.

The findings show that the intervention significantly improved the adjustment of the participating pupils, compared to the control group. That improvement related to all the dimensions of adjustment (i.e. social, protection and learning).

Teacher–school psychologist cooperation, as described here, is hardly practiced. It emerges as an effective model to assist many pupils who are currently left with no treatment. The discussion traces the next stages for outreaching that would apply to pupils in many countries and cultures.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the ways in which elementary school principals in Israel deal with teachers who are “challenging” in their behaviour, that is those who are perceived as under‐performing. This is an important and under‐researched area of educational management.

Interviews were carried out with 40 elementary school principals, every fourth school being sampled in the northern district of Haifa. They were asked to recall a particularly difficult teacher and their shortcomings and then asked about the measures they took, in chronological order, to solve the problem.

The findings indicated that the principals preferred supportive measures or making changes to the organization rather than confronting the teachers. More than half the principals had started by ignoring the difficulties. In the end most did discuss the situation with the teacher and that sometimes involved direct criticism. In half of the cases the teacher left the school by the end of the year.

The research findings are limited as they only relate to the views of the principals, leading to the possibility of researcher empathy with the principals. Further research might investigate the teachers perspective.

From a practical point‐of‐view, the current findings indicate that elementary school principals need to be better equipped with knowledge, managerial skills and sources of assistance to solve personnel difficulties.

This paper adds to the limited literature on the subject of under‐performing teachers and reveals the resulting personnel difficulties faced by principals.

Submitting negative feedback is a stressful experience which both superiors and subordinates try to avoid. Do principals adapt to the mum effect and hide their (negative) thoughts and feelings, or do they confirm Weening et al. hypothesis about the existence of facilitating conditions.

About 40 elementary school principals described in semi‐structured interviews cases of poor performing teachers whom they had to inform about their shortcomings.

Four consecutive stages, which escalated in directedness and criticism were found. Each stage depended on the outcomes of the previous one. Initially, half of the principals preferred first to ignore, but later 88 percent held a soft negative feedback and problem‐solving oriented discussions. When these discussions did not bring the expected results, about 80 percent criticized the worker orally. Only 30 percent criticized in writing. That process was accompanied with mixed feelings, mainly those of anger and compassion.

The results emphasize the need for individual guidance as how to overcome their hesitattions and give effective feedback to their poor‐performing teachers. As an exploraty study, its major weakness was the reliance on one side of the equation – the principals.

Most earlier studies on mum effect were conducted in experimental setting. This study provides a uniquely realistic evidence of the interpersonal processes within the workplace. The worker appraisal and the transmission of (negative) feedback are explored through emotional lens.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of teachers’ optimism and trust in their individual citizenship behavior (ICB), and the extent to which teachers’ optimism is related to teachers’ ICB, and mediated by teachers’ trust. ICB is a concept coined by Hoy et al. (2008). The concept refers to teachers’ voluntary and discretionary behavior directed toward colleagues, students, and the students’ parents, that exceeds the formal job expectations. The primary aim of ICB is to enhance students’ academic success.

In all, 370 teachers from public elementary schools in northern Israel completed questionnaires, assessing teachers’ optimism, trust, and ICB; the category was examined both by direct and projective measures. Factor and reliability analyses; a bi-variate correlation Pearson test; a hierarchical regression analysis; and a structural equation modeling (SEM) analysis were conducted to analyze the data.

The research hypotheses were partially supported: teachers’ optimism, trust, and ICB were positively correlated; teachers’ optimism and trust predicted ICB; trust in students and their parents mediated the association between optimism and ICB, whereas trust in teachers mediated the association between optimism and the projective measure of ICB.

The study results confirm that optimism and trust in students and their parents, and in other teachers have a significant presence in teachers’ ICB; emphasize the importance of a positive school environment; emphasize the importance of teachers’ ICB toward students’ and their parents; indicate the potential benefit of using direct and projective measures; and show support for the mediating model.