Hey Tappsters!
Welcome to the USA Teacher Tapp blog ๐ Six weeks in and we have reached an important milestone – we hit 200 responses this week! Woohoo!
Teacher Tapp gets even better as more teachers join! Spread the word to your colleagues, and letโs grow the community. The easiest link to share is onelink.to/teachertapp โ it takes you right to the app store! ๐ฒโจ
Now, letโs dive into this weekโs round-up of fresh edu-data insights…
1. Teacher dress codes and tattoos
“Dress for the job you want” might lead some teachers to choose some interesting outfits to work (a mask and cape might be appropriate in some cases ๐ฆธโโ๏ธ). But how much variation is there in teacher dress codes from school to school?
๐ Sneakers are allowed in 76% of schools EVERY day, 12% SOME days and 2% on certain days IF teachers pay ๐ฐ.
๐ Denim jeans are allowed in 43% of schools EVERY day, 36% SOME days, and again, money needs to change hands for 14% who can only wear jeans on certain days and if teachers pay.
Now, clothes you can change – but covering up a tattoo can be a little more tricky.
๐จ When it comes to tattoos 70% of schools allow ALL tattoos to be on display, 9% have rules about covering up tattoos on specific parts of the body, just 5% say that tattoos have to be covered up.
But what rules would teachers put in place if they were in charge?
Only 53% would allow ALL tattoos to be on display, and 28% would allow SOME tattoos displayed. 19% would like to ban allowing visible tattoos altogether!
29% of Tapsters have tattoos – but how many have chosen body art related to their subject? Be sure to follow us on Bluesky and X and join in the conversation sharing your edu-related tats!
2. Teacher stress
When we first started Teacher Tapp, our main wish was to stem the tide of teachers leaving the profession. One way of doing that is making everyone aware of the challenges teachers face on a day to day basis so that policymakers can solve them.
This week we looked at what had made teachers feel stressed over the past two weeks specifically.
Top of the stress-list is student behaviour and concerns related to students (61%), followed by relationships with school leadership and grading work (46%).
Just 7% reported not feeling stressed or unhappy AT ALL about work in the past two weeks.
This question will be asked again later in the school year – so keep your eyes peeled for it to reappear ๐. Previous Teacher Tapp polls in other countries tell us that typically, accountability stresses increase as summer exam season grows closer…but will that be true in the US? Keep tapping to find out!
As Teacher Tapp grows we will be able to share breakdowns for responses in High school, middle and elementary schools – so be sure to share the app with your friends! The easiest way to do it is to send them the direct link to take them to the app store: onelink.to/teachertapp.
3. Lunchtime
Grabbing lunch at your desk is always a less-than-ideal way to eat a meal – but more than half of teachers (60%) spent their lunchtime like that this week.
Just 10% ate their lunch in the teachers’ lounge, and 11% didn’t even get to eat lunch at all!
But who are teachers eating their lunch with? The majority ate alone (54%), and 36% ate with either students, colleagues or both!
Could this isolation be contributing to teachers leaving the professional? If you’re stressed by behaviour difficulties and workload and you don’t have anyone to share the stresses with during a lunch hour, does that make things harder to cope with?
Other lunch facts:
โฐ The most common length of a lunch break is 30-44 minutes (61%).
โฑ๏ธ Just 2% have a lunch break of at least an hour!
โณ 28% have to squeeze their lunch into less than 30 minutes ๐ฑ.
๐ณ๐ฑ๐ด๓ ง๓ ข๓ ฅ๓ ฎ๓ ง๓ ฟ Over on our sister-Teacher Tapp site in the Netherlands, the most common length of a lunch break was 15-20 minutes (42%) ! In England, lunch breaks are longer, lasting 30-44 minutes (35%) or 45-59 minutes (34%).
โ Celebration ๐ฅณ 221 Tapps!
Fantastic news! On Monday we reached 221 responses for our questions – yippee!
The bigger the panel, the better our results and the more accurate our findings – so it really matters to us that Teacher Tapp grows ๐ฅฐ.
Our next aim is to get to 500 USA Teacher Tappers by the end of December – can you help us get there?
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 a seasonal special on banning Halloween in NJ.
