de difícil empeño

10:00 Apr 2, 2019 

That had occurred to me but the odd thing about the term is that it is “official” if you like so “problem school” would seem a little vague, although I’m leaning towards forgetting the offical nature of the term.

09:42 Apr 2, 2019 

Would "problem schools" be too general?

09:32 Apr 2, 2019 

For you help. I have now finihsed the translation but have still not found a totally convincig translation for this expression, which occurs more than once. I am thinking along the lines of “challenging teaching conditions” but can’t find a way to fit it elegantly into the sentence

22:21 Apr 1, 2019 

This means schools and teaching posts where it is particularly difficult for teachers to do their jobs (desempeñar su trabajo).

Here's a comment from somebody who had such a post (in a secondary school in Málaga):

"Tienes que olvidarte de cualquier metodología conocida y encontrar en cada grupo la mejor manera de engancharlos a tu asignatura, son alumnos que no tienen el más mínimo interés en estar allí, van obligados por temor a servicios sociales, muchos de ellos no conocen las normas básicas de educación y por supuesto en sus contestaciones te puedes imaginar el tono que emplean, te pueden amenazar, cagarse en tus muertos, etc. mandarte a la mierda sería muy leve.
Da bastante buen resultado no alterarte lo más mínimo en esos casos ni entrar al trapo pero sí tomar las medidas pertinentes en cada caso. Por lo general son alumnos que están bastante faltos de cariño y agradecen cualquier muestra de ello por nuestra parte. En fin son centros muy duros"
http://www.ustealdia.org/foro/index.php?topic=116840.0

It takes a special kind of person to handle the pressure. Lots of teachers just can't take it. There's some element of this in many schools, esp. in 3º and 4º (age 14-15).

17:26 Apr 1, 2019 

firstly for my mistake in the Spanish term, it should be "desempeño" . Although the schools are obviously in disadvantaged areas, I think the translation needs to maintain the idea of "difficult" or "challenging" since the term refers literally to "la dificultad de desempeñar el trabajo educativo …"