Hillsborough School Board data finds many elementary teachers don’t feel respected

TAMPA (WFLA) – Data from a newly-released Hillsborough County report is showing that the county’s educators lack the feeling of mutual trust and respect in their work environment.

The annual survey, published by the Hillsborough County School Board this week, shows a wide-range of data from academic performance to satisfaction of students, parents and staff.

On the first of the two-page reports for each of the county’s 250 public schools, instructional staff was asked to respond to the statement, “There is an atmosphere of trust and mutual respect.”

According to the U.S. Department of Education, Hillsborough County has 15,162 certified teachers.

Of those, many teachers from the more than 100 elementary schools in Hillsborough report not feeling that there is an atmosphere of trust and mutual respect in their schools.

Kimbell Elementary in Tampa had an extremely low rate of teachers agreeing with that statement at only 5 percent.

On the flip side, for the last three school years Tampa Heights Elementary had 100 percent of its instructional staff report that they did feel an atmosphere of trust and mutual respect in the school.

In its report, the county’s report did not offer solutions on how to help the teachers in schools such as Kimbell Elementary, however, the school board did reach a tentative deal to increase starting salary to $40,000 last month.

MORE NEWS BY THE NUMBERS: