With feedback from more than 1,000 local teachers, the Tucson Regional Educator Collaborative is shaping its programs and services to try to meet teachers’ needs as they confront effects of the pandemic.
TREC, a University of Arizona group aimed at supporting educators’ professional growth in the region, conducted the survey last fall to learn more about the current climate for teachers and what kind of services they needed.
In the group’s Teacher Survey Report, participants said they needed more support in areas including active student engagement, social-emotional learning, project-based learning and trauma-informed practices.
Social-emotional learning teaches individuals how to identify and manage their emotions in healthy ways. Trauma-informed education considers how trauma can affect learning behaviors. Both have become more prominent needs as students reap the effects of the pandemic, including loss of parents for some.
“With the pandemic and the changing landscape of teaching, we felt that it was really important to redo this study, and really understand what teachers were looking for now,” said TREC Director Jennifer Kinser-Traut, noting that the group had done a similar survey in 2019.
“I wasn’t surprised that social-emotional learning was really kind of a key (professional development) area, as well as trauma-informed training.”
TREC let participants choose which questions they wanted to provide feedback on, taking into consideration the limited amount of time they had available. In total, 1,043 educators participated.
Overall in the survey, teachers expressed feelings of being exhausted and overwhelmed by factors related to teaching during the pandemic. Some of the consistent challenges they listed included extended work hours, staffing shortages, and greater teaching expectations.
Still, when asked to rate their current level of satisfaction with working as a teacher, 55% of the participants reported they felt satisfied or very satisfied. A total of 957 participants responded to that question.
“The beginning of this school year was so wild and they had just been through the previous school year. I think it just talks to how much teachers love their jobs and what they do, but how they also need support and tools to do their work,” Kinser-Traut said.
Building community
To help meet educators’ needs and increase teacher retention in the long run, Kinser-Traut said TREC helps connect them to professional development opportunities aside from the ones provided by districts, and has created programs for teachers across the region to collaborate.
Communities of Practice — a program that brings together teachers from across Pima County — has opened discussions on emotional resilience, trauma-informed practices, leading as females, and visual art.
A two-year Teacher Leaders program also brings together teachers to identify professional learning needs and develop a plan for addressing gaps.
Karyn Vick-Frantziskonis, a curriculum and instructional support specialist for the Amphitheater School District, is one of seven members of the Teacher Leaders first cohort. For her, it was important to find ways to support other teachers without moving into an administrative role.
She said her cohort organized study groups among local teachers to discuss emotional resilience in the classroom. Most recently, she said, a few of the members have been discussing grading practices that are fair to all students.
“Those of us who are towards the end of our classroom careers, this has been such a wonderful way for me to continue in education and be able to support the newer teachers because we need them,” Vick-Frantziskonis said.
“We need the new teachers. We’re at the highest teacher turnover rates in history,” she said.
