The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore how first-year teacher induction candidates appraised and coped with stress during the fall of 2020 as educational communities deliberated on reopening schools during the COVID-19 pandemic, and the impact of teaching in pandemic induced environments on their trajectories of development. Through semi-structured interviews, participants (N=7) from a convenience sample of northern California teacher induction candidates appraised both positive and negative stress and ways of coping during their first months of teaching. They reported both problem-focused and the emotion-focused coping responses of self-blame, wishful thinking, support seeking, avoidance, and positive reinterpretation. These experiences aligned with the trajectories of disequilibrium participants’ annotated on Moir’s (1999) Stages of a Teacher’s First Year trajectory diagrams. The findings provide important insights into the need for systems of support to recognize and understand the personalized stressors that new teachers face at the beginning of the school year in a time of crisis. They highlight that stress and coping dynamics can inform teacher induction programs, districts, and schools to develop targeted interventions designed to support new teachers. Interventions can be tailored to minimize new teacher professional and emotional disequilibrium and the burden of responsibility felt in developing as a new teacher so that teacher well-being is not solely a personal responsibility but a collective one that requires institutional commitment and change.