Yesterday, various members of the Connecticut Education Association (CEA) and the state legislature took to Hartford to share the findings of CEA’s 2024 education survey. The study found that burnout, pay rate, and student behavior topped the list of teachers’ concerns.

“Our educators are telling us that stress and burnout has actually leapfrogged to the top of our list of concerns,” said Kate Dias, CEA President. “These are all stressors that our teachers carry with and often try to compensate for.”

The survey, administered in October, compiled the thoughts and opinions of 5,016 teachers across the state. 98% of the teachers surveyed cited stress and burnout as a concern, placing them atop teachers’ lists. Salary levels, student behavioral issues, lack of respect for teachers and political decisions surrounding education rounded out the reported top five concerns. The survey found that these other four concerns were all factors in exacerbating teachers’ feelings of burnout.

The survey found that 70% of teachers said they would discourage others they know from pursuing a career in education, a 6-point increase from the 64% that reported the same in last year’s survey. Salary levels, in tandem with a high cost of life and the number of burdens placed on teachers regarding the length of schooling and number of certifications required, seemed to be the most significant issues voiced by the teachers that spoke.

“As someone who’s soon to enter the profession, the $60,000 minimum salary is something that’s always on the forefront of my mind,” said Hannah Spinner, a senior at UConn who is studying to be a teacher. “Quite honestly, it makes me scared to think about it already.”

Spinner said she has been “poring over the contracts of various districts,” and has considered what measures she may have to take to live on the salaries provided, whether that be living at home, or taking up other jobs for supplementary income. The teacher who spoke before her, Jeff Morrissey, President of the Bridgeport Education Association, said himself that there were “many Friday afternoons” in which he had to prepare to work his second job as a server after finishing his week as a teacher.

“What most teachers make about 10 years into the career with a master’s degree is what many of my non-education peers, who I’m about to graduate with in May, are going to make in their first job ever,” said Spinner. “It’s time for the state and for the country, for that matter, to compensate teachers for our education and pedagogical expertise in a time where the need for teachers is skyrocketing.”

According to the National Education Association (NEA) the parent union of CEA, Connecticut has the 6th highest paid teachers in the country with an average salary of $83,400. While teachers can expect to make higher salaries as they continue their career, starting salaries are typically much lower. According to Teach CT, the average first year salary of teacher’s with bachelors degrees in Bridgeport, Hartford and New Haven are $50,824, $47,464 and $49,283, respectively.

Rep. Christopher Poulos (D-Southington), a teacher himself, offered several suggestions to make schooling a more attractive career, such as reducing costs of licensure and certifications, finding ways to reduce class sizes, and finding new ways to fund special education programs, which have been hit hard across the state after the sunsetting of various COVID-era federal funding initiatives.

“We need to do an audit of all our education mandates,” said Poulos, on the topic of finding funds for special education. “We’ve got to look at the old ones, the ones that don’t really have a good return on investment, and we got to get rid of them.”

Student enrollment continued to decline for the 2023-2024 school year according to data from the Connecticut State Department of Education (CSDE). In the past ten years, enrollment has dropped by 33,697 students. Homeschooling has also recently increased. Census data shows the percentage of Connecticut families who homeschooled increased from 2.5 percent in spring 2020 to 7.5 percent in fall 2020.

Lastly, Poulos touched on a point that many educators who spoke agreed with; that teachers need to be more involved in making policy decisions that impact the classroom. Every teacher asked for a greater say in crafting and reviewing state and district policies that impact education. Dias said that this played into the “lack of respect” many teachers feel.

“I think lack of respect manifests itself in different ways, one would be in micromanaging” said Dias. “If you’re asking for teachers to submit scripted lessons day in and day out, that does not respect our autonomy, and our understanding and our professionalism.”

She also highlighted a greater need for teacher input in disciplinary measures. Student behavior was another concern noted by educators, and another concern exacerbated by larger class sizes. Manchester teacher James Tierinni shared his observations on how Manchester’s decision to crack down on student cell phone use has helped them stay focused and better socialize.

“The biggest obstacle that I face to teaching my students has been simply their cell phones,” said Tierinni. He said since they were banned, he’s seen a “great improvement” in their “attentiveness,” and “ability to simply interact with each other.” He also noted that the CEA survey found that 94% of teachers supported banning cell phones during class time and 83% support banning them outright.

While those who spoke highlighted a multitude of complex problems, they all advocated for greater allocation of funds to the public school system.

“I think that that is the critical understanding, that we need to invest in our public schools,” said Joslyn DeLancey, Vice President of CEA. “What we need to be doing is making sure that this session, when we start talking about policy and legislation, that a priority of funding is our public schools, and directing those funds to places that will impact our students so that they can be successful.”

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