It’s 3:15pm. A teacher just knocked on your door with a question that, two months ago, you would have answered in thirty seconds. Today you stare at them for a beat too long. The answer is in there somewhere. You just cannot get to it. You feel something between exhausted and irritable, and you don’t…
The principal is the institution’s primary carrier. Every significant problem in the building eventually moves toward the person at the top of the building’s hierarchy — because that person has the authority to address it, the accountability for whether it was addressed, and the specific positional visibility that makes them the logical destination for everything…
The strategic plan says equity. The budget communicates something more specific about which schools the commitment to equity extends to in practice. The mission statement says teachers are the most valued professionals in the system. The working conditions those teachers navigate on a daily basis communicate a different institutional priority. The superintendent’s message to principals…
I want to start with the thing that nobody says in the hiring interview, in the educational administration certification program, in the professional development workshops designed for new principals, or in the mentorship conversations that happen in the early years if you are fortunate enough to have them at all. School leadership is one of…
Let me tell you what principal burnout recovery does not look like. It does not look like waking up one Monday with renewed purpose and a fresh perspective after a good weekend. It does not look like a leadership retreat that sends you home with a full notebook and a short-lived enthusiasm that disappears by…
Every year, schools across this country watch their principals walk out the door. The numbers are staggering and the explanations are always the same: it is a pipeline problem, they say. A preparation problem. A compensation problem. It is not. It is a burnout problem. And until the people talking about principal turnover are willing…
It starts around 4pm. Or maybe after dinner. A tightness you can’t quite name — a low hum of something that wasn’t there this morning. The weekend isn’t technically over yet, but Monday is already in your chest. If you are a principal, you know exactly what this feels like. You have probably felt it…
It’s 10:47pm. You made every decision that needed to be made today. You held it together in every room. And now you’re lying in bed and your brain is still going. The parent email from this afternoon. The teacher who left your office looking defeated. The budget line that doesn’t add up. The call you…
The AI conversation in education is producing a specific anxiety in a specific group of people. Not the anxiety about replacement — most experienced principals have moved past that or are learning to. The anxiety underneath it: the suspicion that the profession is entering a period of transformation and the people most responsible for leading…
I want to talk about something that most principal professional development avoids because it is uncomfortable: the school improvement plan that does not improve the school. You know this pattern. The data review in August that identifies the priority. The goal that goes on the CIP. The initiative announced in September. The professional development in…