Preliminary Findings of NYKids’ COVID-19 Educator Survey Study

By Lisa Yu, Aaron Leo, and Kristen C. Wilcox

The COVID-19 pandemic has added more stress to the already high-stress profession of teaching. In a recent study, nearly half the participants who voluntarily quit teaching indicated the pandemic as the main reason for leaving their jobs. Despite this unsettling finding, the needs of educators – including school leaders, instructional staff, and support staff—have received little attention among the research community.

In advance of what is predicted to be a significant supply-demand problem in the teacher workforce in the coming years, NYKids has designed our study mindful of the need for practical strategies to mitigate teacher attrition.

This blog reports the results of a preliminary analysis of over 600 educators’ responses with a focus on their experiences of occupational stress and intent to leave their job. We conclude with some recommended resources.

Factors Impacting Educators’ Responses

One purpose of the study is to explore variation in the impact of COVID-19 on educators’ work and personal life by teacher characteristics and school factors. These variables include educators’ gender, ethnicity, primary role at work, years of working experience, and responsibility of school-age children at home.

In addition, school-level factors that may lead to the variation in educators’ feelings and performance adaptation are also considered in the study. Examples include student demographics, level of need at each school (i.e. low need, average need, high need), grade level (i.e. elementary, secondary), and the communities they serve (i.e. urban, suburban, rural).

In light of the current literature, students and their families’ socioeconomic status (SES) can play an important role in their engagement at school and communications with teachers during the pandemic. Therefore, we broke down our data sets by three categories of schools by percentage of economically disadvantaged (ED) students^.

Key Findings

#1. Higher and Lower Needs School Teachers Experiencing More Stress

Findings of the preliminary analysis indicate that educators’ stress levels vary across schools serving differing percentages of economically disadvantaged students.  However, the relationship between educator stress and rates of economic disadvantage are not linear – educators from the middle economic disadvantage group experienced less stress than those from low and high groups.

These findings indicate that the inequities between high needs and lower needs schools are potentially exacerbated by the pandemic. While our analysis is ongoing, it is possible that leaders and teachers working in the most affluent districts and schools struggle as much if not more than their peers working in higher need schools due to new challenges they were not prepared for previously such as rising rates of children’s mental health challenges.

#2. Intent to Leave Teaching Shifts Upward Since the Pandemic Started in Higher Need Schools

This study also investigates educators’ intent to leave their job and compares their responses before and during the pandemic. Additional items were added to the survey providing indicators of educators’ feelings of intrinsic motivation to stay (e.g., finding their job personally fulfilling) as well as extrinsic motivation to leave (e.g., seeking more pay or better work conditions).

Prior to the beginning of the pandemic, educators’ feelings about their jobs were similar across the three economic disadvantage groups with no statistically significant differences. However, since the pandemic began, educators in schools serving higher percentages of children growing up in poverty indicated that they are more likely to leave their jobs than their peers in other schools.

Take-aways and Resources

One clear conclusion from this analysis is that the pandemic has exacerbated some of the challenges facing educators serving higher percentages of economically disadvantaged students. These results predict higher rates of educator turnover with particularly concerning impacts for youth growing up in poverty. They also indicate that even teachers in more affluent schools may be at risk for leaving the workforce.

For more information on workforce stress and job satisfaction, please visit our webpage for resources and blogs.

To learn more about implications for district and school leaders in mitigating teacher stress and job dissatisfaction sign up for our facilitated discussions through Questar 3 BOCES or reach out directly to us at nykids@albany.edu