Fairfax County school teachers say they are disappointed improvements to workplace conditions were not made by the current School Board, which leaves office at the end of this year.

However, leaders of the county’s two major educator advocacy groups said new School Board members might offer the workplace reforms the groups are looking for.

“I’m optimistic about working with the new School Board,” said Michael Hairston, president of the Fairfax Education Association, which represents about 6,000 members. “We have a lot of issues on the table … workload is one, and also time [usage] concerns … time to actually work with children.”

A year has passed since the Fairfax Education Association and the Fairfax County Federation of Teachers, which has about 3,700 members, teamed to conduct a survey of teachers on workplace conditions.

“We had a lot of complaints from teachers about workloads last year,” said Steve Greenburg, president of the Fairfax County Federation of Teachers.

In their School Environment Survey, 83 percent of respondents said working for Fairfax County Public Schools requires an extraordinary amount of time before and after contract hours. Similarly, 78 percent of respondents said they thought teachers needed more support, and 82 percent said unencumbered lesson planning time and teachers’ workday time had eroded because of workloads. The survey was administered in October 2010 and later presented to the School Board and administrators during a regular meeting that winter.

“We got some lip service but not a lot of action. … The workload situation hasn’t gotten any better,” Greenburg said.

Educator advocacy groups did receive a letter in June from Superintendent Jack D. Dale following up on their survey results and plans to aid teachers.

In his letter, Dale said advocacy leadership would be meeting during the summer to develop strategies and funding to support teachers who take on additional duties in schools.

“We have learned, over the past several years, that these additional duties will be necessary for us all to continue to have highly successful schools,” Dale wrote.

The school system is planning to conduct its own survey of teachers on work conditions and other issues as a means to help relieve stress issues, school officials said.

Greenburg and Hairston have been meeting with school administrators to discuss issues facing teachers and the FCPS survey, which might be launched as early as June, they said. In the meantime, the Association and Federation are planning to launch a follow-up survey similar to their 2010 School Environment Survey, Greenburg said.

Hairston said, “As long as you’re able to share the results of that survey with all the stakeholders [such as parents and community leaders] as a way toward growth, I’m supportive of it.”

Transparency, he said, will be key to promoting changes teachers are asking for.

“One of the reasons we gave [the 2010 survey] was so we had quantifiable data to show people in the school system that we have problems in the workplace. … The morale is really low,” Greenburg said. “We now know that they know about the problem.”

hhobbs@fairfaxtimes.com