OHIO - According to a survey by the American Psychological Association, teachers around the country faced a series of issues during the pandemic, including violence. At least 49% of the 15,000 school teachers surveyed indicated they were looking for a different career as a result.

What You Need To Know

  • During full remote and hybrid school settings, teachers, administrators and psychologists had a number of violent threats
  • About 20% never let an administrator know and 25% never tell a family member about their encounters
  • The American Psychological Association’s Task Force on Violence Against Educators and School Personnel is working to change policies through legislation

Eric Anderman is a professor at Ohio State University and a national expert on the American Psychological Association’s Task Force on Violence Against Educators and School Personnel.

“One of the things that really was the most salient finding is that even during COVID, when schools were primarily online and hybrid and people weren’t coming into the building, there was still quite a bit of violence being perpetrated against teachers as well as against school administrators, and school psychologists,” he said.

“You have to look at the time that we were in. During the pandemic, the fact that one in three teachers experienced verbal abuse of some kind, and 14% experienced physical abuse when they weren’t even the buildings, is incredibly high.”

The numbers for administrators were striking as “I believe 42% of school administrators were verbally threatened by or harassed by a parent,” Anderman said.

Anderman noted that in a previous study, those who experienced violence did not report a number of incidents.

“When it happens from in the building, about 20% never even tell one administrator and 25% never even tell a member of their family that it happened to them. And there are many reasons for it,” said Anderman.

He added that some may not have reported the instances of violence in times past because they didn’t want to look like they were not doing their job correctly. In this latest study, teachers did not report incidents because “they don’t feel supported. There’s a strong sentiment of not feeling supported by administrators,” he said.

So now, Anderman and others who sit on the task force have been working to change policy.

“There are a number of bills that are before congress now, that are being considered that would increase funding, mainly to support student mental health,” he said. “That is one of the biggest concerns that the teachers had, as well as funding to provide really, really reliable and research based professional development to the teachers. Not just these sort of one-hour little professional developments, but to really use research to help them handle violence.”

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