We Are In Trouble; Principal Turnover Has Become The Norm

Principals are a critical part of the everyday function of the school. They have an extremely important role focused on developing and maintaining effective programs and promote the improvement of teaching and learning. Principals are vital to school success and we know that they play a huge role in retaining effective teachers so why haven’t we created a principal pipeline program or a principal coaching support system for all leaders? Although we would love to say that principals stay through their tenure; the national average according to the Learning Policy Institute is only four years from 2016-17, with 35% being at a school site for less than two years.

Hiring the wrong leader can set a school, its faculty, and its students back for 1 to 10 years. Finding a principal is an extremely difficult task. If a principal does not mesh well with the school or the culture they are unlikely to stay. When principals leave, the sudden shift is more likely to make the school unstable for everyone at the site. A high principal turnover rate can be extremely destructive to the Educational Foundation of a school. Each principal has their ideas of how a school should be run and how the curriculum can meet educational standards. 

Always starting at “Square-One” principal turnover

Image via @WeAreTeachers

If a school has three principles within ten years, the first two years of that principal’s three-year stay out of school is simply adjusting the school curriculum and how they believe the school should fulfill State educational requirements.  At the end of the third year, the principal has left, and a new principal is hired over the summer and then the entire school and its teaching faculty are back to square one. Now they must adjust to a new principal and their ideas.

When Teachers are hit with an unstable environment; they leave

Instead of refining and improving a school curriculum to help their students, teachers and teacher's assistants are working towards a new leader’s vision and expectations. In such an unstable environment, teachers are far more likely to leave, furthering educational issues and exacerbating existing issues (Harbatkin & Henry, 2019). Principals who are high-ranking expect to have matching salaries. While this compensation makes sense, it does put certain schools at a disadvantage if they cannot afford the salary of an effective principal then districts do the best with the resources they have.  So, by not being able to afford a well-seasoned principal that can bring true change to a school, the students, who have no educational power of their own, are even more at risk because of cost.

What are principals saying they need in order for them to stay?

Winginstitute.org: Tracking the tenure of school principals at their current schools

So, what can a school do to hire the right principal that will stay with the school for a decade or more? The first factor that a principal will stay in is a high salary. Over 76% of principals agreed with the statement that if they could get a higher-paying job, they would leave their current School. Excellent principles should receive excellent compensation and underpaying them only encourages them to leave faster. Another way to ensure that principals stay in their current school is to have a district or school that provides them with adequate power to change the things that they see as a problem. Nearly half of all principals said one of the reasons they left their school for another was the degree of authority they had in the decision-making process and how much they were able to use their position for change (Levin). 

References

Harbatkin, E., & Henry, G. T. (2019, October 18). The cascading effects of principal turnover on students and schools. Brookings. https://www.brookings.edu/blog/brown-center-chalkboard/2019/10/21/the-cascading-effects-of-principal-turnover-on-students-and-schools/#:~:text=We%20find%20that%20principal%20turnover,proficiency%20rates%2C%20and%20teacher%20retention.

Levin, S. (n.d.). Principal turnover: Insights from current principals. Learning Policy Institute. https://learningpolicyinstitute.org/product/nassp-principal-turnover-insights-brief.

Understanding and addressing principal turnover: [image]A review of the research. Learning Policy Institute. (n.d.). https://learningpolicyinstitute.org/product/nassp-understanding-addressing-principal-turnover-review-research-report.

How long have school principals typically been employed as principals in their current schools? [Image] The Wing Institute. (n.d.). https://www.winginstitute.org/how-long-have-school.