Researcher: Many former Beloit teachers report vicarious trauma, limited administrative support

Doctor Stephanie Hormick, a researcher and director of the LGBTQ program at Family Services of Southern Wisconsin and Northern Illinois, told the School District of Beloit Teaching, Learning, Equity & Pupil Services Committee that retired district teachers she interviewed reported widespread secondary (vicarious) trauma and inconsistent support from school administration.

"Two thirds of all the children that are in the schools have experienced one traumatic event by the age of 18," Hormick told the committee, summarizing national context she used to frame her dissertation research in Beloit. She said her study focused on secondary vicarious trauma among K–12 educators — the stress and symptoms that result from repeatedly hearing students' trauma reports rather than from directly experiencing the traumatic event.

Hormick described interviews conducted inside the Beloit district, initially with 14 retired teachers and later expanding to 25. She said peer support was common — "10 out of the 14 participants in the original 14 said that they relied on their peers for the emotional support and the guidance" — but that many teachers did not view administrators as safe sources of help.

"Not a single teacher could say they 100% felt supported by their administration the entire time they were at the district," Hormick said, reporting a recurring theme from interviews. She gave examples teachers shared, including one who learned through a newspaper article that a student had brought a weapon into that teacher's classroom and received no administrative follow‑up.

Hormick said interviewees linked secondary trauma to life outcomes outside school: "50 percent of the people that I interviewed said that they couldn't separate school mindset from the outside school mindset," and roughly 30 percent described school pressures as a factor in divorce filings. She also reported that 85 percent of respondents said they experienced administrative bias that contributed to insecurity at work.

Committee members praised the presentation and asked about existing avenues for teacher support. "If an assertive teacher wants help, is there an avenue for them to reach out?" asked Board member Tom Hankins. A staff member identified in the meeting as Teresa replied, "Yes," indicating employee assistance resources or similar supports exist; Hankins and others pressed whether those resources and the people who provide them are trained to recognize and respond to signs of teacher trauma.

"The building principals need to be very aware of how to handle this just like FMLA and other things that they have to be on top of," Vice President Brian Nichols said, adding that staff must be made aware of supports and how to access them.

Board member Megan Miller called for intentional, districtwide practices and joined other members in urging the administration to consider policy and handbook changes to make teacher supports explicit. "A teacher's work environment is the student's learning environment," she said, arguing that better, routine supports for staff would likely improve student outcomes as well.

Hormick closed with recommendations drawn from her interviews: strengthen and clarify mentoring and peer‑support programs (including follow‑up beyond an initial year), build trauma‑informed practices that include educators as well as students, train administrators to recognize and respond to staff trauma, and revise district policies and handbooks to specify supports available to teachers. She offered to share her full dissertation with the district.

The committee did not take formal action on Hormick's recommendations at the meeting; members said they would continue the discussion at future committee meetings and suggested the district review current staff supports and handbook language for gaps Hormick identified.

Why this matters: Hormick framed her research as a potential lever on teacher retention, a priority repeatedly named by board members. Committee members said they would explore whether existing programs are sufficiently visible and whether additional administrator training or policy language is needed so teachers can get help earlier and more reliably.

What’s next: Committee members asked district staff to inventory supports available to employees, describe how staff are notified about those resources, and outline any additional training for administrators that would be needed to implement Hormick’s recommendations. No timeline for that follow-up was set in committee discussion at the March 18 meeting.