Third of secondary school teachers feel less safe at school

Teachers in secondary school often face verbal abuse or harassment from students and parents. One in three say their school has become less safe in the past three years, Trouw reports based on a survey by DUO Onderwijsonderzoek & Advies among a thousand teachers. 

Most teachers still feel safe at school, with only 8 percent responding negatively to the statement "I feel safe at school." Nine percent said their school became safer over the past three years.

Secondary school teachers often face undesirable behavior. The most common is verbal abuse or harassment from students, with 39 percent experiencing that in the past year. A quarter faced verbal abuse from parents. In exceptional cases, incidents escalated to physical violence. Teachers often report incidents of undesirable behavior from students and parents and frequently indicate that they were dealt with to their satisfaction.

Twelve percent of teachers faced verbal abuse from a superior and 13 percent from a colleague. They were much less likely to report these incidents. Only 37 percent reported verbal abuse from superiors, and 56 percent of those were dissatisfied with how the report was handled. The figures are comparable for undesirable behavior from colleagues. 

If a teacher reported undesirable behavior from someone else at the school, they usually went to another superior or the school board. Only about 20 percent went to the school's confidential counselor. Some teachers deliberately turned to someone else. Others did not know who the confidential counselor was. A few said they did not dare go to the confidential counselor.