Hey Teacher Tapp Community!
Week 22 and the Teacher Tappers are still growing!
Another week, another amazing round of insights from our growing Teacher Tapp community! Plus – our first Starbucks gift cards have been sent out! Nearly 800 teachers are now sharing their views on what’s happening in schools across the country—thank you for being part of it!
☕ Reminder: Keep tapping! If you answer 30 days before the end of April, you’ll earn a Starbucks gift card as a little thank-you from us. 🎉
This offer is limited to the first 1,000 teachers who sign up, so tell your teacher friends to be quick! Send them this blog and tell them to join the app today and help correct the narrative about education in the US.
To qualify, you must:
✔️ Be a K-12 teacher currently employed in a US school 🏫
✔️ List your school’s name in your Teacher Tapp profile ✏️
✔️ Be a legal resident of the United States 🇺🇸
🔗 Read the full terms and conditions here
Want to make the Teacher Tapp community even stronger? Invite your colleagues to join! The best link to share is onelink.to/teachertapp – it takes them straight to the app store! 📲✨
Now, what did teachers tell us this week? Let’s find out…
1. Cell phones away!
Cell phones can be massively disrupting just in every day life…but in the classroom it can really mess up your lesson plans. When we asked about rules around cell phone use earlier this year, 71% of middle and high school teachers said their rules meant phones should never be allowed out in lessons…and yet, the reality is quite different.
A huge number of middle and high school teachers had to deal with students taking out cell phones when they were not meant to – a massive 47%.
These figures explain the responses to the question about what school administrators could do to better support the wellbeing of teachers.
Addressing student behavior issues was the top response (and probably includes things like supporting teachers dealing with cell phones in class!) with 73% of elementary and 77% of middle and high school teachers choosing this option.
Improving communication was the next most popular choice with 58% of elementary and 61% of middle and high school teachers choosing this option.
Just 11% of elementary and 10% of middle and high school teachers felt that their wellbeing was already well supported.
Looking for a little help…
On the topic of wellbeing…when a work worry is taking over your life, who do you turn to?
Teachers are most likely to say a teaching colleague!
- 78% picked a teacher-colleague in a similar role.
- 56% would speak to a family member or friend who did NOT work at a school.
- 19% opted for their principal or administrator.
2. Bathroom break!
A trip to the toilet shouldn’t be a luxury…and yet, sometimes, in schools, it feels like it is!
A MASSIVE 77% of female teachers struggle to visit the bathroom when they need to during the school day, and a not insignificant 65% of male teachers report the same.
Perhaps part of the problem is that even when teachers are out of the classroom, their time is taken up with tasks like duties.
On a snapshot day, half of teacher tappers were completing some kind of duty…
- 25% on duty at the end of the day.
- 20% on duty at the start of the day.
- 15% on duty at recess.
- 10% on duty at lunch.
- and 9% on another type of duty.
And yes, that maths means that many teachers are doing multiple duties on the same day.
3. School vouchers
School voucher programmes where state funds are used for private school education do not currently operate in all states (and even in the states where they are in place, they don’t all work the same way). To find out more about the schemes and how they work – this blog explains the details.
However, the general feeling about the use of vouchers seems to be quite clear.
In elementary schools, 22% support the idea of the scheme, with 15% feeling neutral, and 63% not in support.
This level of support drops among middle school teachers, with just 12% in support, 13% neutral and 77% not in support.
Among high school teachers 20% support, 8% feel neutral and 73% are not in support.
With much discussion in the media about the impact of school vouchers (here is a blog from The Conversation that goes into more detail) this is a topic we will revisit over the next few months…
+ Time for Starbucks!
This week the first Starbucks gift cards were flying out to your inboxes!
263 Teacher Tappers received their Starbucks gift cards!
And that’s not all…we made an important change to how we calculate your Starbucks gift card counters…
Keeping a 30-day streak to earn your gift card without missing a day is tough. When we launched our Starbucks offer, we wanted it to be a fun challenge – but we’ve listened to your feedback and made an important change! 🙌
🔺What’s Changing?🔻
You now only need to reach 30 days total by the end of April to earn your gift card- your counter won’t reset if you miss a day.
All gift card streak counters have been updated — previous “streak breaks” no longer count against you.
Daily Reads
We know lots of teachers on Teacher Tapp LOVE the daily reads! If you have ideas of reads we could feature, get in touch by emailing usa@teachertapp.com and we will check it out!
This week our most-read blog was all about instructional playbooks!
