The Roadblocks: Obstacles to Building and Maintaining Trust in Schools

Building trust between educators—whether teacher to teacher or teacher to administrator—is rarely a simple matter. Obstacles to trust are, unfortunately, easy to come by, particularly in schools that have experienced high turnover in school leadership, repeated layoffs and budget shortfalls, and/or widespread differences of opinion regarding curricula, teaching practices, school policies, or other matters affecting students, faculty, and staff. Unfavorable media coverage can also fan the flames of mistrust, pitting teachers against administrators or representing conflicts within the school community in less than productive ways.

While there are probably endless grievances we could list here that have led to low levels of trust in different schools, the most common barriers to developing and maintaining trusting relationships among teachers, principals, and other school staff members include the following:

• Top-down decisionmaking that is perceived as arbitrary, misinformed, or not in the best interests of the school
• Ineffective communication
• Lack of follow-through on or support for school improvement efforts and other projects
• Unstable or inadequate school funding
• Failure to remove teachers or principals who are widely viewed to be ineffective
• Frequent turnover in school leadership
• High teacher turnover
• Teacher isolation

Perhaps the greatest obstacle that schools experiencing a lack of trust must overcome, however, is their past. Identifying the specific causes of mistrust in the school and making a sincere commitment to address them is the first and probably most important step.