LOCAL TEACHERS LESS SATISFIED
Hamilton County teachers, in nearly every general category measured, are more dissatisfied with their jobs than they were a year ago, according to the Tennessee Department of Education’s 2022 Educator Survey.
They’re also more dissatisfied in all general categories than the average teacher statewide.
While only 45% of district teachers participated in the survey, that percentage was easily the highest among teachers in the state’s four largest counties of Davidson, Hamilton, Knox and Shelby.
Seventy-five percent of Hamilton County teachers either agreed or strongly agreed that their school had a positive school climate, but that combined total was down nine percentage points from the 2021 survey. That 75% was six points below the statewide average of 81%, which was down seven points from the previous survey.
District teachers’ general satisfaction of 82% was down five points from 2021 and was five points below the state mark of 87%.
What does that likely mean for Hamilton County?
The educator survey noted that, statewide, the number of teachers planning to continue teaching in their current school next year fell from 82% in 2021 to 77% in 2022.
After the 2021-2022 school year, Hamilton County reported 410 resignations and 90 retirements, a total of 500 vacancies. That was significantly higher than the COVID-marred 2020-2021 school year when 242 teachers resigned and 67 retired.
Increasingly, lack of respect for teachers and the lack of discipline of students are being cited as reasons for resignation — not money, as some advocacy groups would have you believe.
“COVID wore everyone down,” then-district Chief Talent Officer Penny Murray told this newspaper last August. “And there was a short time where teachers were celebrated during COVID. And then now, it seems like the reverse is kind of turned on. It’s such a negative inference, and the pressures on the teachers and the negativity on it. And not really elevating and raising the profession and appreciating what they do as professionals.”
A teacher survey with 75 respondents by local education advocacy organization UnifiEd last fall indicated 60% of respondents believed student behavior has worsened, 65% said they hadn’t been assaulted but knew colleagues who had, and 19% said they had been assaulted by a student.
“I really think we’re going to continue to see this death by a thousand cuts,” UnifiEd Executive Director Kendra Young, a former Hamilton County public school teacher, told this newspaper in November. “It’s this trickle effect where teachers are just leaving, leaving, leaving, leaving.”
Bryan Robinson, a teacher who left the district in October after an altercation with a student, told the paper the situation has been worsening.
“(Students’) language, cussing, has been really bad,” he said. “No respect at all. And then the administration, again, seems to automatically take the side of the student versus the teacher. The kids would get sent to the office, just to come right back and kind of smile as if to say ‘See? I told you nothing would happen.’”
Those opinions are borne out in the state education survey.
The biggest drop in any general category among Hamilton County School teachers was in “Students treat adults with respect at this school.” In the 2021 survey, 80% of respondents either agreed or strongly agreed with that statement. In 2022, only 63% did.
The next biggest drop was in the statement: “Students in my school are safe from bullying.” In 2021, 82% either agreed or strongly agreed, but in 2022 only 69% did.
A third category brought a similar drop. In 2021, 73% of respondents either agreed or strongly agreed that “School leadership effectively handles student discipline and behavior problems.” In 2022, though, that combined number fell to 62%.
All three Hamilton County results were below state averages, the greatest difference coming in students treating adults with respect, which had a statewide average of 70%, seven percentage points above the local mark.
About 39,000 educators across the state — about 51% of all teachers — took the 2022 survey, down from more than 40,000, who took it in 2021. If 45% of Hamilton County’s 2,800 full-time teachers responded, that amounted to about 1,260 surveys from the district.
Although the survey includes numerous other categories such as resource and time use, COVID issues, early career and pre-kindergarten, English language arts curriculum and special education, and career and technical education, it is clear from the more general categories that our local school district continues to have challenges in individual schools with respect, discipline, teacher retention and bullying, none of which deal with the material that is taught but all of which affect it.
We confess we have no easy answers to offer but believe if the trend is not reversed the cry will get louder for even further education choices for Hamilton County students.