The purpose of this qualitative descriptive study was to explore how middle school teachers in the Southwestern United States described the role of coping strategies in their decision to remain in the teaching profession, specifically focusing on emotion-focused and problem-focused strategies. Lazarus and Folkman's theory of stress and coping and Carver's Brief-COPE served as theoretical frameworks for this study. The research questions in this study aligned with the phenomenon related to stress coping in Lazarus and Folkman's theory and Carver's model. Two data sources were used to gather data for this study: an open-ended questionnaire and a semi-structured interview. Participants were selected using convenience and snowball sampling. Thirty veteran middle school teachers responded to the open-ended questionnaire, and nine participated in the semi-structured interviews. The study data was analyzed using Braun and Clarke's six-step reflexive thematic analysis, utilizing the MAXQDA software and the ChatGPT AI programs. Eight research themes emerged that answered the two research questions from the study. The emergent themes were reactions to stress, frequency of stress, systems of support, administrative influence (positive and negative), influence of coping strategies to remain in the teaching profession, minimizing stress, physical activities/hobbies, and work/life balance. The study's results suggested that teachers used more emotion-focused strategies than problem-focused ones and overwhelmingly sought professional and social support from others. The study concluded that coping strategies played a significant role in the ability of veteran middle school teachers to stay in the teaching profession. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://bibliotheek.ehb.be:2222/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]