91ֱ

Families & the Community

Survey Finds Teachers’ Biggest Challenge Is Parents

By Linda Jacobson — June 21, 2005 3 min read
  • Save to favorites
  • Print
Email Copy URL

More than 80 percent of new teachers say that to be effective, they need to be able to work well with parents. Yet communicating with and involving parents is their biggest challenge, according to this year’s MetLife Survey of the American Teacher, released last week.

is available from the

Many new teachers said they lacked guidance from their principal on parent involvement, and about a quarter of the respondents said they felt unprepared to engage parents in their children’s education.

Principals surveyed, however, generally had more positive views of the steps their schools took to involve parents and prepare new teachers for that task. Seventy-one percent of principals agreed that including parents is a priority at their school, compared with 59 percent of new teachers.

See Also

See the related item,

Chart: Degrees of Satisfaction

Focusing on the transitions into schools for teachers and students, the survey commissioned by the Metropolitan Life Insurance Co. gathered responses from 800 public school teachers who are in their first five years of teaching. The telephone survey was conducted last fall by Harris Interactive Inc., a market-research company based in Rochester, N.Y.

More than 1,000 students in grades 7-12, who made the transition from elementary to middle school or from middle school to high school, were also surveyed online. In addition, almost 850 principals were questioned by phone. The margin of error for the teacher survey is 4.4 percentage points, 4.3 percentage points for the principals’, and 4.1 percentage points for the student survey.

About half—45 percent—of the students agreed that their schools do a good job of encouraging parent involvement, but only 27 percent said that atmosphere carries through to the classroom level. Among secondary school students, 68 percent said that their schools contact parents only if a problem has occurred.

A Lack of Support

Many students new to their schools said the transition was made more difficult because they didn’t have anyone to help them navigate their way through the process. Almost one-third of the secondary students interviewed said they didn’t receive any guidance about what classes to take, and 20 percent said they received no information about where some offices or facilities were located.

New teachers also often experience a similar lack of support. About 20 percent said they were not assigned a more experienced teacher as a mentor when they arrived, even though almost 40 percent said that would have been the most helpful kind of training.

“Without the support system of formal and informal mentoring, these struggles can be exacerbated and lead to dissatisfaction,” the report says.

Still, more than half the new teachers surveyed agreed that cooperation exists between veteran and rookie teachers at their schools.

Teachers who could end up leaving the education profession were less likely to feel positive about their relationships with students, other teachers, and principals. They were also less likely to strongly agree that their principal fosters an environment that allows them to be effective teachers—40 percent, compared with 63 percent of those who said they planned to continue teaching.

John Mitchell, the deputy director of the educational issues department at the American Federation of Teachers, said the survey shows that strong relationships are important for both teachers and students.

“This is about getting the support that you need when you need it the most,” he said. Successful teachers also need guidance on how to mentor new teachers, he added. “We need this most in difficult-to-staff schools.”

Related Tags:

Events

This content is provided by our sponsor. It is not written by and does not necessarily reflect the views of 91ֱ's editorial staff.
Sponsor
Student Well-Being Webinar
Improve School Culture and Engage Students: Archery’s Critical Role in Education
Changing lives one arrow at a time. Find out why administrators and principals are raving about archery in their schools.
Content provided by 
School Climate & Safety Webinar Engaging Every Student: How to Address Absenteeism and Build Belonging
Gain valuable insights and practical solutions to address absenteeism and build a more welcoming and supportive school environment.
Student Well-Being K-12 Essentials Forum Social-Emotional Learning 2025: Examining Priorities and Practices
Join this free virtual event to learn about SEL strategies, skills, and to hear from experts on the use and expansion of SEL programs.

EdWeek Top School Jobs

Teacher Jobs
Search over ten thousand teaching jobs nationwide — elementary, middle, high school and more.
Principal Jobs
Find hundreds of jobs for principals, assistant principals, and other school leadership roles.
Administrator Jobs
Over a thousand district-level jobs: superintendents, directors, more.
Support Staff Jobs
Search thousands of jobs, from paraprofessionals to counselors and more.

Read Next

Families & the Community Leader To Learn From From Haircuts to Home Language, One District’s Approach to Family Engagement
Miranda Scully takes an all-hands-on-deck approach to parent engagement in her Kentucky district.
8 min read
Miranda Scully, Director of Family and Community Engagement (FACE) for Fayette County Public Schools, assists students during a ACT prep class held at the Family Connection Center on Dec. 12, 2024, in Lexington, Ky. The Family Connection Center offers programs like ESL classes, college preparation, and household budgeting and money management classes.
Miranda Scully, the director of family and community engagement for the Fayette school district in Kentucky, helps students during an ACT prep class held at the Family Connection Center on Dec. 12, 2024, in Lexington. The Family Connection Center offers programs including English classes for non-native speakers, college preparation, and household budgeting and money management classes.
Michael Swensen for 91ֱ
Families & the Community Q&A Family Engagement Isn’t One-Size-Fits-All. Here’s How to Do It Right
This Kentucky district leader emphasizes meaningful family engagement training for educators.
4 min read
Miranda Scully, Director of Family and Community Engagement (FACE) for Fayette County Public Schools, stands for a portrait outside the Family Connection Center northern facility on Dec. 12, 2024, in Lexington, Ky. The Family Connection Center offers programs like ESL classes, college preparation, and household budgeting and money management classes.
Miranda Scully, the director of family and community engagement for the Fayette school district, Public Schools, stands outside one of the district's family connection center's on Dec. 12, 2024, in Lexington, Ky. The center offers programs like ESL classes, college preparation, and household budgeting and money management classes.
Michael Swensen for 91ֱ
Families & the Community Parents Think Their Kids Are Learning a Lot at School. What Do Students Say?
The perception gap between parents and their kids widens as students get older. Does it matter?
5 min read
A student sits quietly, contemplating life while others chat nearby in a bustling school hallway.
iStock/Getty
This content is provided by our sponsor. It is not written by and does not necessarily reflect the views of 91ֱ's editorial staff.
Sponsor
Families & the Community Whitepaper
Promoting Family Engagement Through Invention Education
Explore how effective family engagement helps reverse declining enrollment and chronic absenteeism, and how invention education helps sch...
Content provided by