CHARLESTON, S.C. (WCBD) — The Charleston Teacher Alliance (CTA) released the results of its annual survey rating Charleston County School District’s (CCSD) leadership skills Wednesday morning.
The survey gathered feedback from over 700 Charleston County teachers on the performance of the district’s principals and board of trustees.
The leadership skills of CCSD’s principals and school board were rated “ineffective” in the survey, receiving an average rating of 1.8 out of 4 in overall effectiveness.
“It’s not frustration, it’s just a need for help. Every teacher has this innate need to do what’s best for their kids. So we’re always going to be struggling to find that,” Stallings said.
The survey identified five top concerns of CCSD teachers: compensation, class size, discipline, teacher retention and frequent curricular changes.
“There were just several issues — discipline, curriculum, compensation at the end of the year…just a lot of things are weighing heavily on teachers right now, and it makes the job very difficult,” Stallings said.
Charleston Teacher Alliance is the largest teacher advocacy group in Charleston County and one of the largest in South Carolina, including more than a thousand CCSD teachers.
CTA recognized many schools are “flourishing” under positive principal leadership, although it was of the “more turbulent years in recent memory.”
In fact, 12 schools were designated as “honor roll” schools for having principals that demonstrated outstanding leadership, according to CTA’s press release.
CTA provided the following statement in regards to the previous school year: “though the board received an overall rating of ‘ineffective,’ there were moments this year where some board members sought to listen to teachers and support us through trying times.”
Rikki Davenport, an eighth grade South Carolina history teacher in the district, said she was not surprised by the low ratings made by her colleagues.
“There’s hundreds of responses here. It’s a lot of teachers feeling not supported with discipline,” Davenport said.
Davenport also said she was disappointed more teachers did not voice their concerns in the survey.
CCSD teachers said they hope the new superintendent, Don Kennedy, will spark positive change.
“We want to see these things put into place. We want to see things move forward. We want to see hope on the horizon,” Stallings said.
WCBD reached out to Charleston County School District, but officials were unable to provide a comment Wednesday afternoon.
Click here to view raw data from the survey.