Overall, the salaries of international and independent teachers are rising worldwide as they should if we are to attract, retain and reward them. Benefit packages are becoming more attractive as well, and in some cases becoming more creative and evolving more quickly than the salary systems.

At the same time, many teachers continue to be unhappy about the fact that their workload seems to be increasing due to rising parental demands and required attendance at meetings that they view as nonessential and intruding upon their planning time.

Teachers are also having to respond to parents’ growing anxiety about AI usage, student wellbeing, social media bullying, and college placement. They feel that school leadership is not as supportive as it should be and are not sufficiently pushing back against overly intrusive parents. Furthermore, because parent-dominated boards struggle to distance themselves from parent complaints on a range of issues, teachers again tend to feel that they are unsupported.

Yet, parents are the clients; hence, the dilemma. What can we do?

Annual faculty/administrative retreats: The purpose of these is not only to have a good time, welcome newcomers and build unity but also to listen actively to teacher input about appropriate communication strategies with parents and to offer guidelines on how to respond to parental pushback and sometimes hurtful comments and actions.

Clear codes of conduct: There should be annual written and oral communication for new and returning parents about expectations for their behavior towards the faculty, administration and other parents. There should be an explicit explanation of the appropriate channels of communication and boundaries of authority so that parents understand which actions are unacceptable. The consequences for repeatedly engaging in unacceptable behavior should be spelled out clearly. Parents should be required to sign a code of conduct contract annually for their own protection and that of the school. Keep watching the legal case in North Carolina which revolves around the rights of private schools to have contractual language that annually allows schools to invite a family to reenroll or not, based on parent versus school rights. This could have national implications.

Parent Associations: These organizations have traditionally helped to fund special projects, volunteered in the classroom and at special and athletic events, and celebrated teachers at an annual luncheon. These participating parents can also be trained, guided and motivated to protect great teaching by being a proactive buffer against inappropriate parental intrusion and complaints.

Celebration of teachers and teaching: Regular, not just annual, online newsletters, assemblies, and periodic forums should highlight teacher successes, accomplishments and publications. These will illustrate the strengths of the faculty and foster appreciation of their talents.

So, while money will always be crucial to a teacher’s decision to enter and stay in the profession, and while salaries in most schools are rising ahead of inflation, in the thousands of conversations we are having with teachers worldwide, we are hearing that the quality of a teacher’s daily life in the classroom and in their interactions with parents and school leadership is rising to the top of their concerns.

Littleford & Associates works with thousands of schools worldwide on governance, faculty salary system and benefits design, school climate issues, marketing, and healthy and powerful parent engagement opportunities.