Teacher Working Conditions Survey Results for Chatham County
The 2008 Chatham County Teacher Working Conditions Survey reports are available at
http://ncteachingconditions.org/reports/report_main.php?orgID=190&masterSiteID=org§ion=
2008 Respondents
# District: Chatham County Schools (94 % responded)
# North Carolina (87 % responded)
Good things are happening in Chatham County schools.
The great news is that 92% of teachers feel that the faculty is committed to help every student learn and 88% believe that teachers are held to high professional standards for delivering instruction. 77% feel that their school is a good place to teach and learn.
Most teachers feel that they have sufficient access to appropriate materials (81%) and they work in a clean and well-maintained school (80%) that is safe (86%)
School leadership, teacher empowerment, and school facilities and resources greatly affect teachers’ willingness to keep teaching at their schools. 74% plan to continue teaching at their current school or current district over the next two years.
Challenges facing Chatham County is the minimal amount of time available for structured collaborative planning. Little (51%) if any (41%) time is spent doing this. Teachers need to be better protected from duties that interfere with their essential role of educating students and we must strive to assure that non-instructional time provided for teachers is sufficient.
Satisfaction with professional development seems somewhat lukewarm and it appears that we can work on helping to improve opportunities to learn from one another and provide sufficient time for professional development.
66% of teachers feel that they have a small or moderate rate of involvement in determining the content of in-service professional development. Three big areas that teachers say they need more training to teach their students effectively are
> English language learners
> Closing the achievement gap
> Special Education
Chatham County Schools need to do a better job providing the professional development classes teachers feel that they need.
Mentoring is an area where there is room for improvement. 43% of new teachers had never been observed teaching by their mentor and 59% had never observed their mentor teaching.