Teacher Working Conditions: What South Durham School Staff Say About Their Schools

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Ask parents where a school is thriving, and they will usually talk about teachers, principals, and the feeling in the building. Ask teachers, and you hear many of the same things, plus one more: whether there's enough time in the day to do the job well.

That tension runs through the 2026 North Carolina Teacher Working Conditions Survey across South Durham and nearby schools. Again and again, educators described schools where teaching support, leadership, and community ties often feel solid, but where time and student conduct can wear people down.

Some Durham Public Schools stood out for especially strong results. Rogers-Herr Middle, Creekside Elementary, Hope Valley Elementary, Neal Middle, and W.G. Pearson Elementary landed among the strongest overall in this group. At the other end, Hillside High, Southern School of Energy and Sustainability, C.C. Spaulding Elementary, and Lowe’s Grove Middle showed more strain.

Still, the story is not as simple as winners and losers. Even schools with very strong results often stumbled in the same place: student conduct. And across grade levels, teachers kept asking for many of the same things, including more chances to observe one another, more planning time, more conference access, and more support for multilingual learners and students with disabilities or other specialized needs.

The NC Teacher Working Conditions Survey, or NCTWC, is a statewide, anonymous survey that asks educators about what it's like to work in their schools. Its purpose is to give school systems and state leaders a clearer picture of teachers’ day-to-day experiences so they can make better decisions about support, staffing, and school improvement.

The survey is biennial, meaning it's conducted every two years.

The following explores schools around South Durham and the results of their survey input: