The majority of teachers in an Alabama school district are working at a “maximum level of stress” at least half of the time, a new survey from the University of Alabama has found.

The survey found that teachers are under a great deal of stress, largely due to student behavior, mental health and learning loss. Experts at the Center for Interconnected Behavioral and Mental Health Systems surveyed more than 200 teachers from one central Alabama district in the spring of 2022. The school district is unidentified.

The report found that in any given week, 83% of respondents indicated they were at their maximum level of stress half of the time or more, while 10% were at their maximum level of stress all the time.

“[This] indicates that your teachers are under a great deal of stress, this is probably impacting critical parts of their job such as relationship building with students, tolerance for behavior, instructional delivery and planning,” the report summary noted.

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Educators said in the survey that they very often felt that difficulties were piling up so high they could not overcome them. They also reported feeling like their jobs were meaningless and insignificant.

Of the respondents, 153 educators were tenured, with some reporting that they’d been teaching between 10 to 30 years.

On average, they said they work 51 hours a week and often said they felt emotionally drained at the end of the workday and burned out.

Notably, in the last six months, 75% of the teachers reported considering leaving their jobs.

“While this number is alarming, it is just above the national average we have measured,” the study said. Researchers suggested that “it may be good to start having retention meetings, celebrations, highlight progress, etc. to keep your teachers with you.”

Nationwide, around 300,000 public school teachers and staff left their jobs between February 2020 and May 2022. A National Education Association poll found that just over half of teachers said they would leave the field earlier than planned, up from 37% reported in August 2021.

Educators in Alabama said that students caused the most amount of stress, followed by administrators, according to the study. They noted that many of their issues were COVID related, including increased rates of discipline and mental health issues for students from COVID and closures, learning loss associated with COVID and related expectations or demands from administration.

“Teachers feel like their jobs are meaningless and insignificant right now, but the good news is they do feel like their job is clear, controllable, and predictable,” the report stated. “This indicates that they are in a difficult phase of teaching and may take some time to see outcomes that help them see that their job is significant and meaningful. Administrators and the district can help to reinforce that you believe they are doing significant and meaningful work.”