A majority of 1,473 Alamance-Burlington school system teachers who participated in the latest biennial teacher working conditions survey – 1,369 or 93 percent – are generally satisfied with the schools where they work, but many ABSS teachers are concerned about student misconduct, distractions during instructional time, and dirty facilities, based on the results of the state’s 2026 survey.
This year’s survey results suggest that student misconduct is less of a problem in ABSS schools than it was two years ago, when the last survey was conducted, but the percentage of ABSS teachers who agreed that misconduct is an issue at their schools outpaced the statewide average responses for more than a dozen areas of concerns about student conduct (see accompanying chart).
School cleanliness and the ability to do their jobs without interruptions also garnered lower marks from the 1,473 ABSS teachers who participated in the anonymous, multiple-choice survey this spring (see accompanying charts).
School board members recently heard a presentation on the 2026 Teacher Working Conditions Survey, which ABSS officials said had shown positive trends in factors that education officials say influence teacher retention, such as mutual respect, community support, and opportunities for professional growth.
This year’s survey consisted of 99 questions and, in addition to their job satisfaction in general, asked teachers about: school and teacher leadership; student conduct; safety/wellbeing; facility conditions; community support and involvement; use of classroom time and non-instructional time; instructional practices and support; and professional development.
Both the 2026 and 2024 working conditions survey – the questions for which are developed by state education officials – eliminated an earlier question about whether respondents plan to continue teaching for their current school systems.
In 2022, the last time teachers were asked whether they intended to continue working for their current school systems, 82.80 percent of ABSS teachers (or approximately 1,389 of the 1,678 teachers who participated in the survey) indicated that they planned to continue teaching for ABSS.
During a recent presentation on the 2026 survey results, ABSS chief human resources officer Yolanda Anderson highlighted positive trends in teachers’ perception of their work environment, opportunities for professional development, and school safety.
“It’s great to hear great news and see how well people like working for ABSS,” school board member Tameka Harvey said during a brief discussion that followed Anderson’s presentation.
School board member Avery Wagoner said he’s thankful for improvements that have been made to ABSS facilities but wanted more information about facilities where teachers say more work is needed.
Eight questions about cleanliness and other school facility conditions were added to the N.C. Teacher Working Conditions survey in 2024 – in part, due to lingering concerns about air quality raised by state educators following the Covid-19 pandemic – and were included again on this year’s survey.
School board member Seneca Rogers said he’s pleased to see a 14.47-percentage point increase in the percentage of teachers who agreed that their schools have an atmosphere of trust and mutual respect this year, versus the percentage of teachers who agreed with that statement four years ago.
“I know when Dr. Fleming came on as our superintendent [in September 2024], one of the big things was trust,” Rogers said. “It’s good to see [that metric] at 83 [percent], when back in 2022, it was 69 [percent]…Everything has shown some growth since 2022, so I don’t want that to get lost. We still need to keep that focus, working on some things going forward.”
[Story continues below summary of findings compared to previous surveys in 2022 and 2024.]
ABSS superintendent Dr. Aaron Fleming told school board members, “While our district data is very good, as you dig in, you’ll see some schools that did struggle [in various areas].” He said that ABSS received low marks for efforts to minimize routine work, adding that more needs to be done to protect teachers’ time from non-instructional duties.
“We’re getting into weapons detection [systems being installed in schools], things that are going to take teachers away from their normal duties,” Fleming elaborated. “The more people we have in our school buildings, the more people [we need to] have to delegate some of those things to.”
Fleming suggested that ABSS may need to examine the possibility of hiring more “paraprofessionals” once the administration installs weapons detection systems in all school facilities. “We need more humans to do that because we don’t have enough [school resource officers] to go around and stand at every door…How do we allow our teachers to be in the classroom and teach and take duties off of them is really where I see things going.”
The state Department of Public Instruction has administered the North Carolina Teacher Working Conditions survey to all classroom teachers and other licensed educators every two years since 2002.
The survey is funded by the General Assembly and is intended to inform state education officials about whether teachers have the support and resources they need to help their students excel, according to an overview that accompanied this year’s results.
