SUCCESS VS. STRESS

SCHOOLS As part of the deal whereby the DISD reinstated 257 teachers in September, teachers agreed to take only two sick days instead of the average 10 during the school year. In November, the school district reported that the agreement had saved $204,000 so far-no small victory considering that one job survey rates inner- city teaching as the most stressful job in America. “Of the districts I’ve known, Dallas is unique in the number of teachers who suffer nervous breakdowns,” says MAUREEN PETERS, president of the Alliance of Dallas Educators.

To help achieve the reduced sick day goal, the ADE decided to distribute “stress surveys” to teachers from September through February, hoping that by identifying the root causes of stress for Superintendent MARVIN EDWARDS, he could take steps to eliminate the problems and lessen the need for sanity-restoring sick days.

Some of the teachers surveyed complained of their profession’s ancient hassles-behavior problems, for instance. Others pointed to seemingly curable glitches-a lack of materials and textbooks, limited access to copier machines, etc. Worse are the excessive paper work and the push for teachers to write detailed lesson plans-in essence, to “script” their lectures. Add to that, Peters says, the growing concern over the DISD’s health insurance plan and the “tyrannical”’ management style of some administrators, such as the high-school principal who writes up “tickets,” or demerits, on teachers who aren’t standing in their doorways while students change classes.

On the positive side, the survey will help identify those schools where teachers don’t report many nagging crises, so the district can target and study schools that are managed well. But some stress-causing factors may be impossible to end without help from outside authorities. “My car was stolen from the parking lot,” one teacher wrote. “That is stressful.”