Only three of the 26 classroom teachers who were at the school then were still at Kemp Mill.

On her daughter’s last day of fifth grade this year at Kemp Mill Elementary School in Silver Spring, Md., Angela Atwood-Moore joined other parents leafing through an old yearbook from when her child was in second grade.

They loved seeing how much their children had grown.

Atwood-Moore noticed something else.

Only three of the 26 classroom teachers who were at the school then were still at Kemp Mill. Atwood-Moore thought she knew why. The Montgomery County school-climate survey found that only 15 percent of Kemp Mill staff members in 2016-2017 and 17.1 percent in 2017-2018 agreed that “staff morale is positive in this school.”

The just-released figure for 2018-2019 is 11.1 percent.

Staff morale is a relatively new tool for assessing schools. Maryland is one of 10 states that require school-climate surveys, which also ask about safety, professional growth and other matters. The importance of such surveys is not yet clear, but they can aggravate existing tensions, as Kemp Mill’s experience shows...

...A low morale percentage often leads to discussions about the principal. Atwood-Moore said she traces teacher turnover and the morale problems to James’s appointment to head the school in 2015. When she was an elected member of the PTA board, she said, she did her best to support James. But she did not like what she called his fondness for “top-down bullying.”..

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/staff-morale-becomes-a-new-school-rating-tool-but-does-it-work/2019/08/23/4da4213e-beaa-11e9-b873-63ace636af08_story.html