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The COVID-19 pandemic, officially declared a national emergency in the United States in March 2020, profoundly reshaped labor markets and worker experiences, particularly in the education system. With many elementary and secondary schools closing their doors in response to pandemic-related fears and uncertainty, 77% of public schools and 73% of private schools transitioned from in-person to online instruction (National Center for Education Statistics [NCES], 2022).
Teachers were asked, often with little notice, to adapt their lessons and quickly transition to hybrid or remote teaching while also grappling with the pandemic’s impacts on their personal lives (Allen, Jerrim, & Sims, 2020; Kim, Leary, & Asbury, 2021; Kraft, Simon, & Lyon, 2021). Although teachers reported a decrease in hours worked at the beginning of the pandemic, overall, they worked more during the 2020–21 school year than before the pandemic (Gicheva, 2022). Additionally, findings from a spring 2020 teacher survey show that 40% of teachers found their job challenging because of aretaking responsibilities for their own children or non-child dependents, and 16% of teachers struggled with work–life balance (Kraft et al., 2021). The impacts of the unprecedented working and social conditions on teachers’ well-being and morale drew particular attention. Many studies show that, during the pandemic, teachers experienced high levels of work-related stress, feelings of burnout, depression symptoms, and an overall decline in morale (Baker et al., 2021; Robinson et al., 2022; Steiner & Woo, 2021; Steiner et al., 2023).
Given the current impetus to address persisting teacher shortages by attracting and retaining “qualified teachers who want to remain in the profession” (Diliberti & Schwartz, 2023, p. 11), it is important that schools and policymakers forge a path forward rooted in their awareness of teachers’ not-so-distant realities. Although the extant literature documents teacher mental health and working conditions during the pandemic, more research is needed to solidify and broaden the field’s understanding of pandemic-related personal and professional impacts. This brief contributes to the literature on teacher experiences during the pandemic in two ways. First, this analysis acknowledges the heterogeneity of teachers and their uneven access to resources and supports and examines how experiences during the pandemic varied by teacher characteristics. Second, this brief uses a nationally representative sample of bachelor’s degree recipients to understand how teachers’ experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic differed from the experiences of similar individuals in other professions.
