New survey of teachers reveals concerns about safety, student behavior

The results of new teacher and principal surveys suggests they're generally happy with their schools but work 50 or more hours every week. The teacher survey also raises questions around the behavior of students and the physical conditions of the schools.

The state Department of Public Instruction conducts a teacher working conditions survey every two years and recently piloted a similar survey among principals in 11 school districts.

The surveys generally show positive attitudes from teachers about their schools. Questions with lower ratings offer school districts and the state a glimpse into how schools can be improved.

The survey comes after months of demonstrations from teachers in Wake County and beyond calling for more support in their schools, in addition to higher pay.

During a Wake school board meeting last month, special education teachers from two dozen schools added up the hours they worked outside their official hours. They counted 50-, 60-, and 70-hour work weeks among them, prompting them to ask for more special education teachers to spread out the workload.

The request came after Superintendent Robert Taylor attempted to cut some of the special education teachers after a grant for them ended, as the district, like most around the state, was facing a budget shortfall going into next year without making cuts.

The State Board of Education is set to hear the results of the surveys on Wednesday afternoon during its planning meeting.

About 103,000 teachers and student services personnel responded to the survey.

About 400 principals responded to the pilot survey.

The results indicate numerous areas where teachers and principals think their schools are succeeding. The large majority of teachers said they felt loyal to their schools, supported by their principals and that their schools effectively engaged parents, among other things.

The surveys also pointed to several areas for improvement, highlighted in orange by DPI officials.

The board's teacher advisers said they were unsurprised by the extra time teachers work outside of their established workday.

Kimberly Jones, a Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools teacher, said teachers are losing both planning and instructional time to distractions, such as student behavior and other obligations. That's not sustainable for the profession or good for students. Though she's a high school teacher, she believes the problem is worse in elementary schools.

"So many of our elementary teachers regularly lose their planning time for coverage of other things," Jones said.

Some problems that affect time can be addressed by stronger school leadership but not all. Jones and other suggested more support staff could help address student behavior challenges.

Board Member Catty Moore, a former superintendent of three major North Carolina school districts, noted that teachers didn't seem to be asking for more help with student behavior. When the survey asked teachers what they wanted more help with, they largely focused on instruction and working with students with certain needs.

"When you look at the stuff they're asking for help with, it's not really student conduct," Moore said. "I don't know if that' a function of so many things they want help with that it falls lower down the list, or if there's a disconnect between understanding the supports you can get as a teacher in improving student conduct in the classroom."

Long working hours

Overwhelmingly, principals and teachers said they worked extensive hours.

Three-quarters of principals said they worked at least 51 hours per week. More than half of principals said they worked 56 or more hours per week.

Those hours are spent addressing student safety and conduct, evaluating teachers, planning and myriad other tasks.

The results were similar for teachers.

The average teacher reported spending nine hours working outside of their contract time, or about two extra hours per school day.

Only two-thirds of teachers said they had enough instructional time to meet students' needs, and just 60% said they had enough time in the day outside of teaching to fulfill their obligations.

Poor student behavior

When it comes to student behavior, feedback from teachers was the worst.

Most teachers believe student disrespect and general disorder are problems in their schools.

More than half of middle school teachers and two-thirds of high school teachers believe cheating is a problem.

About two-thirds of high school teachers believe drug use is a problem at their school.

The department also flagged concerns teachers had about students' families. About three-quarters of teachers believed that students' parents and guardians were supportive of teachers' efforts to help their students succeed. Only about two-thirds of teachers believed students came to school with their basic needs met, such as whether they've eaten enough.

Uncomfortable school facilities

Large majorities of teachers felt their schools were clean, safe and well-maintained, but they raised more fundamental concerns about infrastructure.

Only 70% of teachers said their school buildings were comfortable to work in, with 29% saying they were not comfortable to work in, representing about 30,000 respondents. Teachers were asked to consider classroom size, temperatures, building layout and other aspects of comfort.

In Wake County, where air conditioning and heat failures have been well-documented and have canceled school, the results were worse. There, only 62% of teachers felt their schools were comfortable to work in, with 37% saying their schools were not comfortable to work in, equivalent to about 4,100 of the district's respondents.

Teacher pay, school funding concerns

The working conditions survey does not ask teachers what they think about their pay, but it provided teachers an opportunity to write in their thoughts outside of the questions.

Their write-in responses gave the department the impression that "compensation and funding emerged as recurring concerns."

The department's report reads, "Teachers connected pay, resource limitations, staffing, class size, and retention concerns to broader questions about

whether teaching feels sustainable over time."

Teacher training needs

Teachers also listed several areas where they wanted more training.

Nearly half of teachers said they needed more professional development to work with "special populations" students, which includes students with disabilities and academically and intellectually gifted students.

About a third wanted more training in their subject areas and in working with non-English speakers.

Waiting for legislative actions

North Carolina lawmakers are discussing how much to raise teacher pay as a part of their budget discussions, but they're at an impasse over how much to spend, overall, this year and next year. North Carolina doesn't have a comprehensive new state budget for the current year because of that impasse. The House is proposing an average increase in base pay for teachers of 8.7% over two years, while the Senate is proposing average increases of 3.3% over two years. Both chambers are led by Republicans. Democratic Gov. Josh Stein, who has the power to veto any budget proposal, is hoping for average increases of at least 11% over two years.

Other lawmakers have introduced numerous bills to increase teacher pay. Most of them come from Democrats, who are looking to afford higher raises for teachers in part by reducing funding for private school tuition vouchers known as Opportunity Scholarships.

Democrats view the expanded Opportunity Scholarship voucher program, which is now available to families of all incomes who were already attending private school, as a diversion of state money that could have been used on public schools instead.

During a news conference Wednesday, Rep. Phil Rubin, D-Wake, and others promoted bills to increase funding for teacher pay, childcare and other things. Rubin said North Carolina ranks lower than its neighbors in average teacher pay because resources to pay teachers more are being diverted.

"It is to fund these vouchers," Rubin said.

Republicans have largely favored the Opportunity Scholarship voucher program as a means of helping families afford private schools as alternatives to public school education when that public school education isn't working for their families.

The program serves about 107,000 students this year, costing about $587 million, both drastic increases from when it started more than a decade ago as a program serving only the state's lowest-income residents who were also not yet enrolled in a private school.