Teaching is consistently ranked among the most stressful professions, with high rates of depression, anxiety, and burnout (Marshall et al., 2024; Campbell et al., 2024). For music educators, stress is compounded by performance demands, co-curricular responsibilities, and pressures related to student well-being, often leading to attrition and diminished job satisfaction (Dirks et al., 2023; Frey-Clark et al., 2023). While much of the literature emphasizes deficit models such as burnout and stress, recent scholarship highlights the importance of thriving: teachers’ capacity to flourish rather than merely endure (Beltman, 2011; Chen et al., 2022). Thriving is associated with psychological resources that buffer burnout and may be supported by effective leadership (Anjum, Shehzad, & Jalal, 2021; Wang et al., 2025).This study will use the Wellness in 8 Dimensions (8D) Inventory (Swarbrick, 2012; Swarbrick et al., 2024) to measure wellness across emotional, financial, social, spiritual, occupational, physical, intellectual, and environmental domains in the context of music education. To examine wellness alongside occupational challenges, we will pair the 8D Inventory with the Copenhagen Burnout Inventory (CBI; Borritz et al., 2005) and the Michigan Organizational Assessment Questionnaire-Job Satisfaction Subscale (MOAQ-JSS; Cammann et al., 1979; Judge et al., 1998). Together, these instruments provide both deficit- and strength-based perspectives on music teacher well-being.The study will survey K-12 music teachers across the United States representing diverse school contexts. In addition to the validated instruments, participants will provide demographic and occupational information such as teaching level, years of experience, workload, and co-curricular commitments. Analyses will include descriptive statistics, reliability estimates, and correlations. To test primary hypotheses, multilevel linear models will predict burnout scores from wellness and job satisfaction, with random intercepts for school context and fixed effects for demographic covariates (gender, age, experience, curricular load, teaching level, ensemble type). Interaction terms will probe contextual moderation (e.g., wellness × curricular load). Secondary models will replace the overall wellness score with the eight subscales to examine distinct associations with burnout.By testing whether wellness functions as a higher-order construct in K-12 music teachers, this study extends prior research (Headey et al., 1993; Swarbrick, 2012) into a new educational context. It is anticipated that higher wellness will be associated with lower burnout and greater job satisfaction, with ensemble directors showing distinct profiles. Findings will inform teacher education, professional development, and institutional policy, highlighting the need for systemic support and wellness literacy in music education.Keywords: wellness, thriving, burnout