COLUMBUS, Ohio — In K-12 schools across the country, administrators are tasked with keeping everyone safe. New research shows they may be the most in need of protection.
In a study published this week in Psychology of Violence , researchers surveyed school personnel prior to the onset of COVID-19, during the height of COVID restrictions and after most restrictions had been lifted, and their findings surprised them: Administrators were more likely than teachers or school mental health professionals to experience verbal and threatening aggression from parents. After restrictions lifted, 77% of administrators reported such experiences, nearly 3.5 times the rate reported by teachers.
The research was led by Eric Anderman , a professor of educational psychology and vice provost for regional campuses at The Ohio State University. He and colleagues have conducted a number of related studies as members of the American Psychological Association (APA)'s Task Force on Violence Against Teachers and School Personnel .
"We didn't fully expect such a pattern to emerge," Anderman said. "A lot of us went in with an assumption, including me, that it would be mostly the teachers — they're the ones who have the most direct contact with students every day."
The data show that parental aggression against school personnel never went away, even during the height of COVID restrictions. When most schools switched to remote learning, 42% of administrators still reported experiencing verbal or threatening aggression from parents, and rates climbed even higher after schools reopened.
For Anderman, the issue is personal. As a high school teacher early in his career, he experienced a verbal threat from a student and didn't feel supported by his school's administration. "That always stuck with me," he said. "Whenever I write about it, it resurfaces."
Anderman's research focuses primarily on academic motivation, which is how he became involved with the APA Task Force nearly two decades ago. Past research from the group found that 49% of teachers nationwide considered quitting or transferring jobs as the result of violence and threats made against them, and that violence against teachers is higher in schools that focus on grades and test scores than in schools that emphasize student learning.
Although school personnel experience physical assaults, the new study focused on verbal aggression and threats, which a 2022 meta-analysis found to be more commonplace in schools. The researchers measured eight specific types, including obscene remarks or gestures, intimidation, identity-based slurs, verbal threats, bullying, public humiliation, cyberbullying and sexual harassment.
After pandemic restrictions were lifted, more than 1 in 4 teachers said a parent had publicly humiliated them, and more than 1 in 4 reported being cyberbullied. For administrators, more than 4 in 10 were verbally threatened, and around 1 in 5 reported being publicly humiliated or cyberbullied.
The scope of the problem becomes clearer when educators are given the opportunity to describe their experiences anonymously. In earlier research, the task force collected around 3,000 written accounts from teachers describing the worst incidents they had experienced.
"The stuff they told us — you can't make this stuff up," Anderman said. "People said things like, 'Thank you for asking. Nobody ever asked.' It was therapeutic for some of them."
Despite how common these experiences are, Anderman describes them as a "silent epidemic" because there is currently no national system for tracking or reporting aggression against school personnel, and it receives little media attention. In addition, many educators don't report incidents for fear of looking weak or incapable of managing their classrooms. This silence has consequences for the quality of education students receive and for the ongoing national teacher shortage .
There's good news, though. The study found that maintaining positive relationships between parents and school personnel and providing support for teachers, administrators and mental health professionals at the school and community levels all help reduce parental aggression. School level factors, such as strong administrative support and effective disciplinary policies, were associated with less aggression at all three time points, and community-level factors, such as perceived district investment in education, also made a difference.
The researchers recommend implementing tiered systems of support for all school personnel — including classroom, school and community training — to foster a healthier, safer climate for everyone. The study also noted the importance of proactive and positive communication from school employees to parents. This resonated with Anderman, who still remembers the time his ninth-grade Spanish teacher called his mother — not to report a problem, but to say he was doing well in class. "It made my day," he said. "But it's the only time I ever remember it happening."
Co-authors include Andrew Perry, Hyun Ji Lee and Adriana Martinez-Calvit from Ohio State; Susan D. McMahon from DePaul University; Frank C. Worrell from the University of California, Berkeley; Linda A. Reddy from Rutgers University; Andrew Martinez from Hunter College; Dorothy L. Espelage from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill; and Ron A. Astor from the University of California, Los Angeles. The research was supported by the American Psychological Association.
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