Many teachers don't feel valued

A majority of Charleston County teachers surveyed say they don't feel valued by the school district, evidence of a serious morale problem among those on the front lines of education.

The Charleston Teacher Alliance, a teacher advocacy group, asked its roughly 1,000 members to answer questions related to the start of this school year, and 845 responded. About 3,500 teachers work for the district.

The new survey revealed that 60 percent of teachers who responded don't feel valued by the school district while 76 percent think the district views them as expendable. The alliance represents a large group of teachers, but district leaders don't respond to their requests or seem to hear their feedback, said Kent Riddle, chairman of the alliance and a kindergarten teacher at Angel Oak Elementary.

"They need to start listening to teachers," he said. "It feels like we're being ignored."

The alliance routinely surveys its membership and gives that information to the district's leadership, but it seems as if their input is being dismissed, Riddle said. Teachers who don't feel valued or aren't satisfied with their jobs may seek another profession, potentially creating turnover in classrooms, he said.

School Superintendent Nancy McGinley said she's held steadfast to her belief that teachers are the most important people in the district, and she's concerned with the survey's

results. She plans to respond directly to teachers, likely by creating a video that explains some of her rationale and decision-making. Everyone in the district is there to support teachers, so if teachers aren't feeling or seeing that, McGinley said, then she needs to evaluate those in non-teaching positions and their duties.

"I want teachers to love working in this district," she said. "If teachers don't feel that they are being considered, we have to step up what we're already doing."

The majority of alliance members surveyed earlier this year gave McGinley substantially higher marks of approval than the previous superintendent, and McGinley pointed out the previous positive feedback about her communication and accessibility.

Board Chairwoman Toya Green said she thinks the district's leadership has a good connection to its teachers. Although school officials try to show teachers their importance to education, they never can do that sufficiently, she said.

"People have to find the value in the work they do within themselves, but I also think the district could do a better job of conveying to teachers how critical they are to meeting goals," she said.

Teachers cited one source of the morale problem as the budget cuts. Teachers understood that reductions needed to be made, but they've felt deceived and shocked to see some principals and district officials receive pay increases and bonuses, Riddle said. Teachers' classrooms are hurting, but school leaders still found money for pet projects such as enabling neighborhood schools to offer partial magnet programs, he said. Eighty-four percent of teachers think the district wastes money, and only 35 percent think the district's budget has been reduced to its bare essentials, according to the survey.

"For the district to justify the pay increase by claiming these staff members were taking on extra responsibility was a slap in the face to all classroom teachers," according to a summary of the alliance's recommendations. "With classroom sizes increasing, resources being cut, and higher expectations, we are all taking on larger workloads, higher levels of stress, and less time with loved ones."

McGinley agreed that budget cuts can be demoralizing and upsetting, but she defended the ways the district has chosen to spend its money. Bonuses for principals who lead at-risk schools is a strategy to attract proven leaders to needy schools, and the partial magnet program is an investment to support equity and opportunity in schools, she said. While teachers had two days of furlough, administrators had seven.

Tina Kleindt, co-chair of middle schools for the alliance and a science teacher at Laing Middle, said that morale among teachers is low while their distrust is high. The names of some non-teaching positions, such as teacher coaches, were changed instead of eliminated while teachers are feeling the cuts in their classrooms, she said.

"Teachers are givers, and I think we've been played a little bit," she said.

The alliance repeatedly has asked the district to cut teacher coaches who are supposed to, but often don't, help teachers become more effective, according to survey results. Results from this survey prompted the alliance to again ask that the roles of those with limited to no contact with students be examined; 70 percent of those surveyed said that money on specialists and coaches was not well spent, and only one-third of those surveyed said those positions benefit the classroom.

McGinley said the roles of teacher coaches have been redesigned not only to work with teachers but to also work directly with students. She said those positions, called instructional resource teachers, are a part of the district's overall improvement plan, and they have helped enable the district to achieve its excellent improvement rating.

Those positions shouldn't be eliminated just because some teachers don't see them as adding value, but they do need to be held accountable. McGinley said she didn't have a current evaluation of their effectiveness.