The North Carolina Department of Public Instruction (NCDPI) recently released the results of the Teacher Working Conditions Survey, one that’s been conducted every two years since 2000.
Teachers, principals, and other licensed staff took the anonymous survey in March of this year; 45 New Hanover County district schools participated, and the overall response rate was 91%, with over 1,900 staff members participating.
Results for New Hanover County Schools show higher-than-average ratings for new teacher support, emergency planning, and reporting bullying, but when it came to teachers having enough time to plan, having support in managing student conduct, accessing professional development, and instructional support, ratings fared lower in comparison to statewide averages.
Stephanie Walker, the vice-chair of the New Hanover County School Board, said it’s a good idea for the board to look at the data because with this robust response rate it’s not just hearsay.
“And [if] the data tells us that we have an issue, we should look at it. [...] We can't ignore the fact that teachers feel this way,” Walker said.
Central Office ratings by school administrators
One of the lowest ratings was the approval of Central Office’s leadership.
Only about 33% of principals, assistant principals, and other administrators who took the survey agreed with the following: “There is an atmosphere of trust and mutual respect within this district.” The state average was 72%.
“School administration is feeling that they're not being supported by Central Office, that was a very big thing in the data. That stuck out for me,” Walker said.
Dr. Christopher Barnes, the district’s assistant superintendent of human resources, said of the lower ratings of Central Office’s leadership, “there is no one resolution that can solve concerns about the atmosphere of trust or mutual respect. The only way to do that is working with each individual person that has an issue or concern, and resolving that to a beneficial result.”
He added, “I’m confident that number is going to increase as we show that our role is to serve schools, because if the schools weren’t there, we wouldn’t be here, either.”
Walker said she hopes the board will work with Central Office on this problem, too.
“If the general consensus is that they don't feel supported, then there's an issue. And that's something the school board has to address because it speaks to a larger morale issue. And it's very hard to do your job when you’re not supported,” Walker said.
Further, only 54% of this cohort, about 80 school administrators, agreed that “Central Office supports appropriate school improvement decisions when challenged by parents and the community.” The state average was 82% for this statement.
For the statement, “the district has a clearly defined mission and vision for all schools,” only 68% of school administrators agreed; 92% of statewide respondents agreed with this statement.
At the November board meeting, during his superintendent’s report, Dr. Charles Foust did say he was working on improving the district’s mission and vision statements.
Teacher Autonomy and School Leadership
Ratings for teachers’ sense of leadership and autonomy within a school have decreased over time.
The positive responses to the statement, “teachers are protected from duties that interfere with their essential role of educating students,” have decreased by 10 percentage points from 2018 to 2022, from 71% to 61%.
Barnes said that as a result of some of these concerns, the district has instituted full-time substitutes for certain schools that fall under a certain ‘sub fill’ rate. They are also paying staff an extra stipend when they have to cover a class during their planning period.
Even though the district has implemented new measures to support teachers, it’s an even larger decrease for the statement, “teachers have the autonomy to make decisions about instructional delivery,” with positive responses dropping from 78% to 60% over the same time period.
There’s also 60% that agree that “teachers have an appropriate level of influence on decision making in this school.” That’s down six percentage points from 2018.
Voicing Concerns
Barnes points to class sizes being a major concern for educators.
“Some of the pressures and concerns from folks about having adequate time for planning, about having adequate resources in the buildings are also due to the state's allotment formula, which has not changed in the last decade,” Barnes said.
Chuck Ughetta retired from teaching math at Hoggard High School in June. He’s taught for the past 11 years.
He said reflecting on his teaching career, that the most important partnership is between teacher and student. But the student has to be equally engaged as the teacher.
He, too, agrees that larger class sizes are a hurdle for educators.
“And unfortunately, when you have class sizes that are 30 plus students in a classroom, it's really hard. If the student doesn't accept the responsibility and approach you, it's very easy to get lost in 30 students,” Ughetta said.
He added, “You talk about the parents’ involvement, you talk about the administrator, but where in the whole equation is the student’s responsibility for their own learning? And I sense that was one thing that really started disappearing over the last dozen years, so to speak, the students taking responsibility for their own performance,” Ughetta said.
On issues such as large class sizes and student responsibility, Barnes said the district is listening to its staff. Each month, Superintendent Dr. Charles Foust meets with the following advisory committees: student, classified, teacher, and administrator.
“We bring in people from all over the district, and they tell us what's working, tell us what's not working,” Barnes said.
Russell Clark, media relations manager, said that they further communicate with staff through a weekly newsletter, the district’s Insight podcast, and after every board meeting, he sends out a memorandum telling them about any major decision by the board.
However, Walker said it’s really important that staff feel that they talk openly about problems within the district.
“If they feel like they have something to say, they should be able to say it to the highest level and not just worry about whether or not they should or shouldn't be saying anything,” Walker said.
Issues with professional development
From the working conditions survey, only 48% of teachers and other certified staff agreed that “professional development is differentiated to meet the individual needs of a majority of teachers.” The rating was two percentage points lower for “professional development is evaluated and results are communicated to teachers.” The state average for these two statements is 57%.
Walker noted that she’s been hearing from teachers and staff personally as well as from the December 2021 staff climate survey that some of these opportunities can be misguided.
“So the instinct straightaway is, let's do PD, let's do personal development. At the same time, I feel like that is making it harder for teachers as well because they want a little bit more autonomy to use their skills to teach their students. And when you're getting trained all the time, it's a little bit harder to do that, because you can't plan as much as you want,” Walker said.
Additionally, she said, “I understand the knee-jerk reaction to want to train more because of the learning loss, but I feel like that's having an opposite effect when you're overtraining because that speaks to the time issue. And it also speaks to morale as well of teachers that really feel like they got this, they know how to teach their students.”
Barnes agrees that they need to look more into what the district provides, “Professional development is always one that needs work, and it specifically needs work in diversifying what we offer people, there is no longer sort of a one size fits all.”
He also acknowledged that some of these trainings are state-mandated and the district has to comply. For example, “LETRS has been a very intensive laser focus on reading training that's required a good deal of input and ownership from teachers to complete it.”
Ughetta said that issues like pandemic learning loss are “really hard problems, and there’s no silver bullet and, unfortunately, a lot of times, just like the students learned [during the 'school from home period'], ‘Okay, we just got to do this, and we get a good grade’, teachers also learned, ‘I just have to get this done.’”
Managing student conduct
From the survey, another significant decrease over time has been student conduct.
Only 52% of teachers agree that “students at this school follow rules of conduct.” This rating is down 12 percentage points since 2018.
The survey also captured a rise over the past two years in the following issues at school: physical conflicts among students, vandalism, and possession of weapons.
In reference to these ratings, Barnes said the district has been working on helping staff learn to de-escalate student behavior and to provide additional support for students when they’re in crisis.
But from Ughetta’s experience, it’s really important that school administrators, as well as Central Office staff and the school board, reinforce consequences for poor student behavior.
“When you've had policies and students violate the policy, where are the teeth? What is meaningful to the student to say this is a penalty? And the fact is, the administration probably does not have enough resources to properly enforce with teeth,” Ughetta said.
He added that something should be done when there are students who consistently hamper the learning environment.
“It warps your culture, it disrupts your classroom, it disrupts everything. And we have to find a strategy or something where that part of the student body, you can find a path [for them] so they can be successful,” Ughetta said.
What’s next?
Walker said when she’s visited district schools this past year, most of them generally feel positive about what they’re doing for students.
“They wanted to highlight all the things they were doing really well, and I was very impressed, honestly. And I'm looking forward to going into the rest of the schools and finding out what they need,” Walker said.
For the survey statement, “Overall, my school is a good place to work and learn,” about 81% of the district’s teachers, around 1,850 of them, agreed. However, it’s a decline of two percentage points from 2018.
Walker said she has hopes that the incoming board, who will take their seats on December 6, will unpack the data from the most recent survey.
“Something to pay attention to is the discipline issue, teacher time issue, the morale issue, central office communication issue. As I said, the data is where we start, and as a new board, I will do my job to make sure that they all get this information and that we can come together and have an open discussion, hopefully, in public,” Walker said.
