Without a Lifeline: The Impact of District and School-Level Leadership on Teacher Well-Being During COVID-19

• In Event: Teacher Well-Being Through the COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

COVID-19 dramatically altered the conditions and characteristics of teachers’ professional lives. Beginning in March 2021, teachers were forced to navigate shifting expectations about how and where they would fulfill their roles as educators. Additionally, teachers were forced to adopt new instructional frameworks (e.g., hybrid-teaching, fully remote teaching), in which many had limited experience and training (e.g., Pressley & Ha, 2021b). In this environment, it is not surprising that several studies and commentaries, both national and international, have reported increased stress and anxiety among teachers (e.g., Gadermann et al., 2021; Macintyre et al., 2020; Pressley & Ha, 2021b; Sparks, 2022), leading to concerns about teacher burnout and a mass exodus from the field (e.g., Fullard, 2021; Sokal et al., 2020). Previous research on teachers and teacher stress has identified typical stressors in non-pandemic times (e.g., Loeb et al., 2015; Prilleltensky et al., 2016; Simon & Johnson, 2015), but COVID’s effect on education and schooling exacerbates all these sources of stress and causes them to occur simultaneously. Researchers found that teachers’ stress was activated by the challenges of remote teaching, including navigating technology, increased workloads, and limited access to resources; a lack of clarity around job responsibilities (Allen et al, 2020; McDonough & Lemon, 2022); unrealistic expectations and constantly changing expectations and guidelines for health, safety, and educational priorities (Robinson et al., 2022; Santamaría et al., 2021); and by declines in perceived efficacy or success (Chan et al., 2021; Kraft et al. 2021). In addition, the depth and breadth of stress and well-being was often related to teachers’ perceptions of school and district leadership (e.g., Collie, 2021; Kraft et al., 2021; Pressley, 2021b; Shamburg et al, 2021).

This study makes a contribution to the growing body of literature examining the influence of COVID-19 on education. It was designed to better explore how teachers experienced their work during the pandemic, a heightened period of stress, and the ways in which district and school level administrators attended to or failed to attend to their well-being. To do so, we draw on foundational dimensions of well-being (King et al., 2013) which include: material, physical, social, emotional, autonomy/agency, and productivity/accomplishment. The data come from a multi-state qualitative study about teachers amidst multiple national crises. We draw on interview data we collected from public school teachers in New York City as they prepared and ultimately returned to teaching in the fall of 2020.

Overall, the teachers we interviewed for this study reported increased levels of stress and anxiety teaching during the pandemic and importantly, a diminishe sense of well-being across multiple dimensions. The combination of school closures, new modes of instruction, concerns over health and safety, and general uncertainty contributed to teachers’ increased stress. Our findings also suggest that the actions and attitudes of leaders, at the district and school-level, shaped teachers’ well-being (or lack thereof) during the pandemic. This paper concludes with a discussion of why it is essential for practices and policies centered around teacher well-being to become woven into leadership beyond moments of crisis.

Authors

• Emily Germain, Learning Policy Institute

• Danielle Sutherland, Towson University