Violence against educators is not new, but the uncertainty and chaos of pandemic-era hybrid and virtual schooling exacerbated it, according to a study published in the Psychology of Violence this month.
The study shows that verbal aggression—including obscene gestures, offensive remarks, and intimidation—grew most significantly for school administrators.
The coalition of researchers behind the study has previously examined the impact of verbal aggression and violence on teachers’ well-being, efficacy, and duration on the job. For the first time, however, the researchers surveyed a larger pool of educators, including school administrators and mental health counselors, across three time periods: before, during, and after the pandemic.
“It was a surprise to us that the rates were so high for school administrators across all the time points. But that was something that kind of makes sense logically because the school leader is the person who is the face of the school,” said lead author Eric Anderman, a professor of education psychology at the Ohio State University.
Anderman and his co-authors also examined parental violence against educators along racial and gender lines, noting an uptick in aggression toward Asian and male educators after the pandemic. Rates of aggression in large urban districts and rural districts were also higher than in suburban districts.
When parents engage positively with a school, students’ academic performance and social-emotional well-being improve. In the recent past, however, relationships between parents and educators have increasingly turned adversarial. When a student performs poorly, parents may blame teachers, said Anderman, creating friction. Parents are also defensive or confrontational when their children misbehave and often disregard the schools’ consequences.
In a nationally representative survey of 5,800 educators by the EdWeek Research Center, as part of EdWeek’s State of Teaching project, teachers said their job satisfaction would improve if school leaders could limit parents from undermining the consequences their children get.
To mitigate parental aggression, schools must create a “welcoming” environment for them, said Anderman. School leaders should clearly communicate school policies and procedures, offer meaningful opportunities for parental involvement, and regularly share feedback showing the positive impact of that involvement. This builds trust in school personnel and reduces the likelihood of parental aggression directed toward educators.
The researchers distributed online surveys to a national sample of over 10,000 school administrators, teachers, and school mental health professionals in pre-K to 12th-grade schools in the United States during two data collection phases: August 2020 through June 2021 and March 2022 through June 2022.
Education Week spoke with Anderman about his study, and what school leaders need to reduce the aggression levels toward them and other school personnel.
The interview has been edited for length and clarity.
School administrators faced the highest levels of parent aggression across all three time periods. Were you surprised by that?
That was a surprise to us that the rates were so high for school administrators, you know, across all the time points. But what really struck us was the consistency of it before the onset of the pandemic, during the pandemic, and once restrictions were lifted. We heard lots of stories in the news about parents being angry and frustrated with schools, but the [results] actually play out into how some of it was enacted.
How was this aggression enacted?
In all cases [school administrators, teachers, mental health professionals], the highest [type was] obscene remarks or gestures and being intimidated. But then things dropped off from there, although verbal threats were pretty high as well as being bullied.
You can see consistently for administrators, [almost] everything was higher.
Pre-pandemic, over 50% got obscene remarks, 48% were intimidated, 34% [were] verbally threatened.
[Post-pandemic, these numbers were 57%, 53%, and 41%, respectively.]
More parental involvement could also expose school leaders to more verbal aggression or threats. What’s the balance to strive for?
One of the strongest predictors [of less aggression] in our analysis was positive parent relationships. When you think about interactions that administrators have with parents, it’s often negative. Yet when there are positive relationships, that is one of the strongest buffers against these things happening.
Being proactive about that and doing things in advance to establish a positive relationship helps, so when you do have a negative interaction, if you already had positive ones, it builds a solid starting point for the conversation.
Were women more likely to face this kind of verbal aggression?
Parent aggression was generally higher for female teachers than for male teachers. After the pandemic, there was a reversal, and the [aggression toward] males [was] higher.
We can’t pinpoint exactly why that happened. There was so much learning loss, and there were a lot of behavioral issues. It’s possible that there was some gender stereotyping where male teachers or educators, or principals, were being asked to handle these difficult situations more often than females were, which might explain why there was suddenly more of the parent aggression directed at the males.
How can school leaders ensure their staff is treated better by parents?
For people who work in the school, for the teachers and the mental health personnel, it’s the principal and the assistant principal. For the administrators, it’s the superintendent and people at that level. Our data show that what makes a difference, first and foremost, is when you feel like you have support, you can be heard, and that you’re going to be listened to.
Is the school leader or the district leader somebody who lets the people who work there have a voice?
Even if the leader isn’t going to always be able to do what the people who work there want, do they listen to people? And when a decision is made that runs counter to what they want, are they provided with an explanation?
It works the same way for principals. The principals want to hear that their leadership, superintendents who work more directly with the [school] board have their backs.
What implications does your research have on how principals and other educators are trained on parent engagement?
In places where administrators and superintendents are licensed, how much are they focused on humans? That’s important because you can know all the policy and the law and the financing, but if you don’t know how to interact with people and you don’t know something about child development, that’s tough.
Because if you’re talking to a parent of a 3rd grader versus talking to a parent of an 8th grader, they’re very different creatures.
