Educator survey reveals widespread dissatisfaction over unaddressed student behavioral challenges
September 16, 2024
Press Release
DOVER – Widespread student behavior challenges are leading to a loss of instruction time and exacerbating Delaware’s ongoing teacher shortage, according to the results of a new educator survey released Monday by the Delaware State Education Association.
Rather than focusing time on classroom instruction, the average public school teacher in Delaware is now spending 7 hours per month managing student outbursts and other behavioral health issues, with middle school teachers losing closer to 10 hours of instruction time per month, according to the survey results.
A majority of DSEA members who responded to the 2024 survey said they have experienced verbal outbursts by students that disrupted learning (75%), chronic student absenteeism (72%), property damaged by students (58%), and verbal aggression or threats by a student (55%) in the last three years. Nearly 2 in 5 (39%) say they have evacuated classrooms due to unsafe student behavior, while 1 in 5 (20%) say they have been physically injured by a student.
As a result, 3 out of 5 educators say they are more likely to retire early or leave public education for other careers due to student behavioral challenges, with veteran teachers most likely to quit the profession because of unaddressed issues around student behavior.
“We’re at a crisis point in public education that’s only going to get worse until administrators, school boards and state legislators take corrective action to restore our schools to the safe and healthy learning environments that students need to be successful,” DSEA President Stephanie Ingram said.
“Right now, our students are in dire need of the behavioral health interventions they’ve been promised, while our educators desperately need overcoming the barriers that prevent learning from happing in the classroom,” she said. “Without those changes, instruction time will continue to be lost, which will only contribute to schools missing their proficiency targets and worsen educator burnout. That, in turn, leads to mass vacancies, which only makes the problem worse for the educators who remain. And on and on we go with educators fielding most of the blame instead of getting the support and resources they need. Something needs to change, and we expect the Student Behavior and School Climate Task Force to recommend meaningful reform in the coming weeks that address these concerns head on.”
Emma White Research conducted the latest survey of Delaware public educators commissioned by DSEA, which interviewed more than 1,000 members from July 10-15.
A similar survey conducted at the end of 2023 found that 70% of all educators were dissatisfied with their working conditions, with more than 95% saying they were concerned with stress and burnout, worried about staffing shortages, and concerned with student behavior.
The 2024 survey looked more deeply into how student behavior issues are contributing to educator dissatisfaction.
More than 75% of educators report a lack of parental support in dealing with student discipline, while 60% say they lack support from school administrators. Roughly half of teachers (52%) say additional staff support that could help manage student behavioral issues is missing from the classroom, while a similar number (47%) say students are still not getting the mental health support they need despite recent funding increases for school mental health workers.
Educators also are clear in what steps they believe would address student behavior issues. Among the solutions identified by a majority of respondents were smaller class sizes to allow teachers to develop stronger relationships with students (95%), better disciplinary support from administrators (93%), more co-teachers in classrooms with larger numbers of high-needs students (91%), better administrative communication with parents (90%), freeing up mental health professionals to provide more services to students (86%), hiring more paraprofessionals (83%), and implementing building- or district-wide cell phone policies (81%).
Educator survey reveals widespread dissatisfaction over unaddressed student behavioral challenges
DOVER – Widespread student behavior challenges are leading to a loss of instruction time and exacerbating Delaware’s ongoing teacher shortage, according to the results of a new educator survey released Monday by the Delaware State Education Association.
Rather than focusing time on classroom instruction, the average public school teacher in Delaware is now spending 7 hours per month managing student outbursts and other behavioral health issues, with middle school teachers losing closer to 10 hours of instruction time per month, according to the survey results.
A majority of DSEA members who responded to the 2024 survey said they have experienced verbal outbursts by students that disrupted learning (75%), chronic student absenteeism (72%), property damaged by students (58%), and verbal aggression or threats by a student (55%) in the last three years. Nearly 2 in 5 (39%) say they have evacuated classrooms due to unsafe student behavior, while 1 in 5 (20%) say they have been physically injured by a student.
As a result, 3 out of 5 educators say they are more likely to retire early or leave public education for other careers due to student behavioral challenges, with veteran teachers most likely to quit the profession because of unaddressed issues around student behavior.
“We’re at a crisis point in public education that’s only going to get worse until administrators, school boards and state legislators take corrective action to restore our schools to the safe and healthy learning environments that students need to be successful,” DSEA President Stephanie Ingram said.
“Right now, our students are in dire need of the behavioral health interventions they’ve been promised, while our educators desperately need overcoming the barriers that prevent learning from happing in the classroom,” she said. “Without those changes, instruction time will continue to be lost, which will only contribute to schools missing their proficiency targets and worsen educator burnout. That, in turn, leads to mass vacancies, which only makes the problem worse for the educators who remain. And on and on we go with educators fielding most of the blame instead of getting the support and resources they need. Something needs to change, and we expect the Student Behavior and School Climate Task Force to recommend meaningful reform in the coming weeks that address these concerns head on.”
Emma White Research conducted the latest survey of Delaware public educators commissioned by DSEA, which interviewed more than 1,000 members from July 10-15.
A similar survey conducted at the end of 2023 found that 70% of all educators were dissatisfied with their working conditions, with more than 95% saying they were concerned with stress and burnout, worried about staffing shortages, and concerned with student behavior.
The 2024 survey looked more deeply into how student behavior issues are contributing to educator dissatisfaction.
More than 75% of educators report a lack of parental support in dealing with student discipline, while 60% say they lack support from school administrators. Roughly half of teachers (52%) say additional staff support that could help manage student behavioral issues is missing from the classroom, while a similar number (47%) say students are still not getting the mental health support they need despite recent funding increases for school mental health workers.
Educators also are clear in what steps they believe would address student behavior issues. Among the solutions identified by a majority of respondents were smaller class sizes to allow teachers to develop stronger relationships with students (95%), better disciplinary support from administrators (93%), more co-teachers in classrooms with larger numbers of high-needs students (91%), better administrative communication with parents (90%), freeing up mental health professionals to provide more services to students (86%), hiring more paraprofessionals (83%), and implementing building- or district-wide cell phone policies (81%).
DSEA will present the results of the 2024 Emma White Research survey at today’s 4 p.m. meeting of the Student Behavior and School Climate Task Force.
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