Troubling Foundations: A Case Study in Principal Turnover

Abstract

When Ms. Levi decided to become the founding principal of a new charter high school, she was initially optimistic about the opportunity. Fast forward 3 years and the stress of the role has led to burnout and an eventual resignation. This case study is intended to explore the multiple factors that can lead to principal turnover, including enrollment and staffing struggles, accountability pressures, and the impact of trauma. The discussion challenges current and future leaders to consider the best ways to support principals in staying in their roles.

Introduction

School principals are notoriously passionate about their jobs as educational leaders, but principal turnover is a real problem. The United States is currently in a school leadership crisis, in which over 10% of K-12 principals left their roles as school leaders between the 2021 and 2022 school year (NCES, 2023). This trend, however, is not just a relic of pandemic times. Dating back to the 2008 to 2009 school year, a similar trend of principal departures was present (NCES, 2023). While there has been considerable attention focused on teacher retention over the last few years, less focus has been devoted to understanding the multiple factors that lead to school leader attrition.

This leadership turnover has long-lasting effects on the schools they leave. Principal departures affect school routines, social ties, and institutional memory, often leaving less experienced leaders to fill their shoes, along with a high turnover rate of other school staff members (Bartanen et al., 2019; Pietsch et al., 2019). In addition, school leadership changes have been linked to decreased student achievement in the following year (Bartanen et al., 2019; Miller, 2013). Thus, it is important to understand the causes of principal turnover so that district leaders can find better ways to support these leaders in their roles.

Case Background

Ms. Levi was the founding principal at Key Charter High School. Her promotion to principal was a quick journey. With only a few years of teaching experience and 1 year as an assistant principal, Ms. Levi enrolled in a principalship preparation program and was hired to open and lead a new school from its inception. The job was appealing to her. Instead of adopting an entire high school all at once, she would have a year to plan systems and hire new staff before students would arrive on campus. She could create the culture from the ground up, and with only a ninth-grade class entering the first year, she would be able to slowly grow and gain more experience and responsibility.

Key Charter High School is a school started under a larger charter management organization that serves a predominately Hispanic community, with the majority of students identifying as Latinx. In addition, nearly all of the students at the school are identified as economically disadvantaged students, receiving free or reduced-priced lunch. In the school’s first year, leadership aimed to enroll over 200 ninth-grade students with the intention of enrolling another 200 students from each subsequent class until the school served students from grades nine to twelve. While most of the enrolled students in the first year came from the charter network’s feeder middle schools, many of the students in the feeder pattern decided to attend other high schools in search of a greater variety of programming and proximity to their homes.

Case Narrative

Year Zero

Ms. Levi launched into her first year as principal by crafting the vision for her school. In her conception, Key Charter High School would be built on the values of risk-taking, reflection, and revision. Students would be encouraged to try new things through project-based learning spaces and would be encouraged to step outside their comfort zones. The more difficult part was figuring out how to translate this vision into a reality once students walked through the doors on the first day.

To make this vision come to fruition, Ms. Levi had to shift her planning to focus on developing the school’s systems and culture, as well as ensuring a full staff and student roster would fill the classrooms. To assist in these efforts, Ms. Levi began by hiring the assistant principal, Ms. Rodriguez, a relatively green school leader herself. Ms. Levi then proceeded to bring on 20 other staff members who would support her through the school’s founding year. The diverse staff hailed from all over the country to join in on Ms. Levi’s vision of a new school. While there was a lot of excitement for the varied perspectives and tenure of teaching experience most of the new staff brought, few had roots in the community that Key Charter High School students came from.

Before the vision-setting year ended, Ms. Levi faced her first major challenge. While the school was initially set to open on the campus of one of the feeder middle and elementary schools in the southern part of the city, district leaders informed Ms. Levi that the building would not be ready in time. Instead, Key Charter High School would operate in its first year in a temporary location 13 miles away from its future permanent home. Ms. Levi remembers how expectant parents were not happy with this decision and some even unenrolled. Over the next several months, instead of using much of her critical time on planning, she met with half of the families of intended students, convincing them to stay.

The school building disruption began the enrollment problems that Ms. Levi and her leadership team would face ahead of the new school year. The school was brand new, meaning it did not have a history of traditions, school culture, sports, and activities. This made recruitment of new families even more difficult, and because enrollment was tied to funding in the charter school model, these enrollment concerns affected plans for staffing and resources. The assistant principal, Ms. Rodriguez, recounted,

“there’s an added level of stress around enrollment at a charter school and trying to market your school as a place where people want to go, knowing that you don’t have much, and all of your funding sources are tied to the amount of kids you have in your school.”

To meet enrollment goals, Ms. Levi and her leadership team had to focus energy on recruiting new students from neighboring districts by attending community events and cold calling families on the waitlist from the district’s other high school. However, the hours spent on recruitment came at the expense of other essential tasks necessary for opening the new school, such as planning for instructional quality, supporting new staff, and building a positive school culture. Altogether, these enrollment challenges led to added stress and many additional hours of work within the first few months on the job.

Year One

Ms. Levi’s vision for a new high school finally became a reality when the troupe of entirely new staff arrived for training in July 2016. The energy in the room was palpable as many new teachers and leaders uprooted their lives to work for this new school and were excited to bring the vision to life. With three weeks before the students would arrive, the team spent their time building staff culture, planning and practicing systems and routines, and preparing for the big year ahead. In August, 200 new ninth-grade students walked through the temporary entrance of Key Charter High School to embark on their journey at a founding high school.

The excitement and momentum of the new school year did not last long for Ms. Levi because she was about to experience her first of many staffing problems that would persist throughout her tenure as a principal. Only 4 weeks into the school year, a math teacher abruptly approached the principal during after-school bus duty and informed her that it would be her last day. With no warning, Ms. Levi was rocked.

“Everyone told us that people would quit in year one because founding a school is really hard; but I think seeing our staff in the summer, I really didn’t believe it. I felt so optimistic that, no, that wasn’t going to happen at our school and I had not really prepared myself emotionally or logistically for what happens when somebody does that,” Ms. Levi remembered.

In the aftermath, Ms. Levi urgently sought a long-term substitute and had to assign extra responsibilities to the school’s only remaining math teacher, increasing the strain on both herself and the teacher.

Just two months later, a Spanish teacher approached Ms. Levi and informed her that his graduate student responsibilities were coming in the way of his work and he would have to resign from his teaching role. This time, Ms. Levi and her leadership team felt more prepared. They came up with a coverage plan and list of expectations to ensure the teacher could finish out the semester with his students. However, when the teacher did not follow through on his end of the commitment, the leadership team let go of him 3 weeks before the end of the semester.

While Ms. Levi had followed proper procedures for terminating the teacher’s employment early, the students did not hear the same narrative. To them, their principal had just fired one of their favorite teachers. The next morning, when Ms. Levi entered the school cafeteria for breakfast duty, the students were in full outrage and demonstration. Students held up signs in protest to bring the teacher back while chanting “F*** Levi!” in unison. “It was a really traumatic thing, and it took our school a really long time to repair,” Ms. Levi remembers. The following days were filled with adjustments, where Ms. Levi allowed the students to process the events independently and at an all-school assembly.

Staffing struggles persisted throughout the first year of Key Charter High School. During the second semester, there was significant turnover with front office staff and two more teachers left. Ms. Levi was responsible for identifying struggling teachers to put on improvement plans and figuring out which teachers would not be asked back in their positions. Most importantly, the principal wanted to ensure that quality instruction was happening in each classroom and she was ultimately responsible for building up this capacity. To add to the stress of staffing challenges, in the spring Ms. Levi had to start hiring for the school’s second year when the school and staff would double in size. With a founding high school that planned to add a new grade level every year for the first 4 years, the hiring season seemingly had no end in sight.

Year Two

The second school year kicked off with the long-awaited move to the school’s permanent location, making this a unique transition for a founding school. Typically, when a school opens, they open on their permanent home, but moving campuses came with a significant operational lift. “We were physically setting up shop two times and that meant financially, logistically, and publicly,” Rodriguez stated. The silver lining, however, was that this gave Key Charter High School a chance to re-establish systems, routines, and cultures that were not working. They also were now able to more easily engage with the school community.

During the first year, Ms. Levi was accustomed to working overtime to make her school function. A routine schedule from early mornings to late nights felt like the expectation. Moving into the second school year, however, the exhaustion of lack of sleep and the stress of this constant schedule began to weigh on her, and those around her began to notice. Other leadership team members observed a shift from a collaborative team model to one of hyper-efficiency and shortness, affecting her relationships with staff members and the morale of the team overall. Ms. Rodriguez, the assistant principal, was quick to point out the change,

“Ms. Levi and I have always had a really collaborative relationship, but year two was really hard. She was responding to things in a short way and demanding things. She moved into urgent efficient mode instead of the usual collaborative mode.”

Much of this stress came from assuming the ultimate responsibility for the success of the school. Ms. Levi recounts how the stress of state and district accountability weighed on her during this time,

“if a school doesn’t meet the results for the end of the year there are really serious consequences, like sending a letter to families that says you’re rated a D or that your improvement required you as a principal going on a growth plan. There’s lots and lots of extra oversight. And so there’s a pressure to control things that you don’t directly own.”

After all, charter schools are held to the same accountability standards as public schools in the area and being a new school comes with a pressure to perform.

In addition, leading a charter school that was created on the idea of innovation only compounded the accountability and ownership pressure for Ms. Levi. In a traditional public school, principals enter under a history of existing structure, thus, when things are not working, it may be easier to place the blame on systematic failures from the district. However, within this charter network, Ms. Levi had more autonomy to create structures and systems that would work for the school. Thus, when there was failure or discontentment, the blame landed on the school’s leadership, and Ms. Levi was feeling heavy pressure to succeed.

But just because Ms. Levi was steering the ship at Key Charter High School did not mean she was immune to management pressures. Ms. Levi often found herself stuck between meeting the needs of her staff and the district office at the same time. Stuck in the middle of two polarized groups, principals often have to mediate between them. Sometimes the district will release an unpopular policy or standardized assessment that the teachers do not agree with and principals have to either go to bat for their staff or help allay their concerns.

The stress only amplified when the district announced halfway through the year that it would undergo a merger with a few other charter districts. Ms. Levi had come into her role understanding that she had a lot of autonomy to make the best decisions for her school, but this announcement made it clear that principals would have less say in the decision-making process. “I came to the district with this idea that one of the pillars was always the power to lead and the idea that as a principal you had control over pretty much any decision in your building,” Ms. Levi recounted, “it was clear in the decision-making that was happening that principals were not going to have a seat at the table in the same way we did.” It was at this point that Ms. Levi decided that her tenure as principal of Key Charter High School would soon come to an end. Over the next few months, she began her search for her successor that would take over at the end of the next academic year.

Year Three

At the beginning of the third school year, Ms. Levi announced to the staff that this would be her last year in charge; she would transition out of her role and Ms Rodriguez, the school’s current assistant principal, would take her place. However, early in the school year, Ms. Levi began to second guess her decision to leave. The third year staff was really strong and things were going well.

It did not take long, however, for Ms. Levi to once again cement her stance on resigning, resulting from three traumatic events that happened early in the first semester. First, a student that Ms. Levi had grown close to suffered a life-altering car accident. Ms. Levi recounts the event, “it was really unclear if she was going to survive and so that was emotionally pretty challenging.”

Second, a serious human resource investigation affected two members of her leadership team, individuals Ms. Levi had trusted deeply. She described the experience as personally traumatic, marked by feelings of betrayal and disappointment. Participating in the investigation forced her to confront the reality that people she had relied on had violated her trust, leaving her to grapple with a mix of anger, sadness, and self-doubt about whether she should have seen warning signs earlier. In the end, both employees were terminated, but the confidential nature of the investigation meant Ms. Levi could not share the reasons for their exit with her staff. This inability to be transparent compounded the emotional toll, as Ms. Levi struggled with the weight of knowing she could not provide the clarity her team needed. The situation also revived memories of the first staff termination in year one: “People had close relationships with these individuals but there was no transparency, leading to a lack of trust among the staff.”

The proverbial nail in the coffin was when Ms. Levi walked into a classroom and saw a student holding a loaded magazine of a gun. Immediately, the school went into lockdown, the police were called, families notified, and an investigation took place. In the end, the student was expelled and the event left a traumatizing scar on Ms. Levi. In crisis, principals are expected to go directly into problem-solving mode and do not have time to process their own emotions. With no outlet for reflection, Ms. Levi recounts, “it really knocked me off my feet in a way that has never happened to me before. I think that’s what made me realize that the decision to step down is the right decision.”

In the aftermath of the three traumatic events happening back to back, Ms. Levi took a 2-week leave of absence. Her mental health was at an all time low, such that, upon her return she announced to the staff that she would not be able to finish out the rest of the school year as principal, as intended. Ms. Rodriguez and head of schools would fill in this critical leadership for the remainder of the year, while Ms. Levi would maintain a reduced load of responsibilities. Quickly after, the built up stress in Ms. Levi’s body caused her health to deteriorate and she had to take several more weeks off. Ms. Rodriguez recounts that,

“getting sick really caused her to have to reflect on her role in a more intense way. You have to reflect on, not only is this the right role for me, but can I actually do this? That’s when she decided, no, it’s not the right role for me, I can’t do this, and I don’t want to sacrifice myself physically to have to do this.”

Teaching Notes

Novice School Leadership

Principals have an important role in the school as they are responsible for fostering a healthy learning environment for the many students under their care. They are accountable to district leadership, staff, teachers, parents, and students on a daily basis. While a strong and consistent school leader can have positive impacts on student achievement and staff tenure, novice or unsteady leadership can often harm a school’s culture (Bartanen et al., 2019; Grissom et al., 2021; Levin & Bradley, 2019). This is why the cultivation and retention of school leadership is so critical.

In the narrative case study, Ms. Levi represented a novice principal entering a demanding environment as a founding charter school leader serving a historically underserved student population. Overall, Ms. Levi had relatively limited experience in school leadership, with only a few years as a department lead and 1 year as an assistant principal. While new school leaders typically improve throughout their years of experience, they are not the most effective leaders from the start (Bartanen, 2019). In conjunction, starting leadership in a charter school that served a predominantly low-income community may have made matters more difficult for Ms. Levi as charter school leaders in these contexts tend to have higher turnover rates compared to leaders at traditional public schools (Sun & Ni, 2016). Overall, these findings suggest that it is important to support, train up, and retain these new leaders to maximize their effectiveness with the students and communities they serve. New leaders, however, often experience higher levels of stress and trauma compared to tenured leaders (DeMatthews et al., 2023), making their preparation even more difficult.

Cause of Principal Turnover

Existing literature has examined the various factors that lead to principal turnover. In a systematic literature review that codified past research, common themes such as increased accountability policies, the obstacles of hiring and firing teachers, and low school performance emerged as reasons for principals leaving their roles (Rangel, 2018). Additional factors that contribute to diminished principal tenure include high administrative workloads and the impact of trauma (DeMatthews et al., 2019; Oplatka, 2012). Overall, the combined impact of these factors contributing to principal turnover can result in chronic stress for school leaders, which may ultimately harm their health, leading to burnout and a possible decision to step down from their role (Su-Keene et al., 2024).

The phenomenon of burnout has been defined as a “psychological syndrome of exhaustion, cynicism, and inefficacy, which is experienced in response to chronic job stresses” (Leiter & Maslach, 2003, p. 93). For school leaders in particular, this stress is often amplified as they experience unpredictable problems, lack of autonomy with high-stakes accountability, a multitude of tasks, and the stresses of people management (DeMatthews et al., 2023; Nelson et al., 2008; O’Doherty & Ovando, 2013; Oplatka, 2012). In the particular case of Ms. Levi’s short tenure as a school leader, three main themes emerge as causes for her feeling of burnout and ultimately lead to her transition: enrollment and staffing struggles, accountability pressures, and the impact of trauma.

First, Ms. Levi encountered enrollment struggles when the school location changed unexpectedly the year before her school opened. To balance the school budget and retain all staffing positions, Ms. Levi had to convince families to stay enrolled and recruit additional students to the school. Although enrollment responsibilities are more particular to leadership in charter school contexts, retaining and managing relationships with teaching and administrative teams is a stressor for many school leaders (Mahfouz, 2020). For Ms. Levi, staffing struggles also led to increased stress in her role when teachers quit with little notice and she had to discipline others. As the leader of a new and growing school, Ms. Levi had to recruit a large number of teachers and students on a yearly basis. These responsibilities led to high levels of job-related stress in her role.

The second salient theme in Ms. Levi’s story of burnout was the weight of accountability pressures as a school leader. Studies show that when the federal government and states introduce new accountability policies, school leadership turnover increases, especially in lower-income or lower-performing schools (Rangel, 2018). Ms. Levi had to manage these pressures in the context of a new school and as a novice school leader. The school had few established systems but was still expected to perform at levels of well-established schools in the area. And although she experienced a high degree of autonomy in creating systems for success early on, as her tenure as principal continued, the district took on more decision-making authority, limiting her ability to adapt the school in the way she saw best.

Finally, the impact of primary and secondary trauma significantly contributed to her eventual resignation. Principals often experience primary, or direct, trauma when they respond to a troubling crisis. As the lead decision-maker in the school, principals are the first responders in most situations and this responsibility can weigh heavily on them, especially after an unexpected event. Oftentimes immediately following these events, leaders have to exercise emotional labor in which they manage their expression and modify their feelings (Grandey, 2003). This emotional labor can lead to emotional dissonance or burnout (Brotheridge & Grandey, 2002). Ms. Levi experienced primary trauma during the school protest after the termination of the Spanish teacher, when discovering a major school safety threat, and during the firing of two of her leadership team members. As the school leader, Ms. Levi was responsible for problem-solving during situations that deeply impacted her. This experience was coupled with a large amount of emotional labor, in which Ms. Levi had to manage her emotions publicly and depersonalize the experience to help the school move forward.

Secondary trauma, on the other hand, is the emotional distress one can have when helping other people through their trauma (Administration for Children and Families, n.d.). Principals who experience significant levels of secondary trauma from supporting students or their staff can lead to feelings of burnout (DeMatthews et al., 2019). Ms. Levi experienced secondary trauma when a close student suffered a car accident. While the stress of daily job responsibilities weighed heavily on Ms. Levi, it was the culmination of these traumatic events that ultimately led to her sudden resignation.

Coping With Job-Related Stress

Principals often lack training in managing the significant stress that accompanies school leadership (DeMatthews et al., 2023). To navigate these challenges, many school leaders turn to strategies such as spending time with family, confiding in peers, engaging in physical activity, meditating, and practicing spirituality (DeMatthews et al., 2023). However, research suggests that addressing principal turnover requires more than individual coping mechanisms. Structural supports, such as high-quality professional development, improved working conditions, increased decision-making authority, and reduced high-stakes accountability policies, have been identified as effective strategies for improving principal retention (Levin & Bradley, 2019). Integrating mindfulness-based interventions into organizational practices can help alleviate stress, enhance focus, and mitigate leadership turnover (Kim & Pendola, 2022). In addition, positive psychology approaches, such as solutions-focused executive coaching and spaces for effective complaining, offer promising avenues for supporting principal well-being and extending their tenure (Su-Keene & DeMatthews, 2022).

In the case narrative, Ms. Levi was not able to successfully cope with the traumatic experiences she endured along with a heavy workload. Her limited years of administrative experience prior to her tenure as a principal likely led her to develop few coping skills to handle the stresses of the role. In the end, the lack of coping strategies and reflection time ended up impacting her resilience in her role. Further, accountability pressures, management stresses, and a perceived sense of lack of autonomy while opening a new school added to Ms. Levi’s decision to resign. While Ms. Levi’s experience as a novice school leader may have been a perfect storm that led to her burnout and eventual resignation, many of these stressors are salient for school leaders across the board and thus learning to cope with them is of utmost importance in encouraging the tenure of school leaders.

Discussion Questions and Learning Activities

The events in this case study reflect the numerous stressors principals, particularly novice ones, experience throughout their leadership. Not only do school leaders have loads of administrative burdens brought on by student recruitment, staffing, and accountability programs, but they often experience increased levels of primary and secondary trauma in their roles. The example of Ms. Levi can serve as a learning opportunity for superintendents, district administrators, and school principals to proactively anticipate how school leaders should manage stress.

1.  Have a large group discussion focused on identifying the most significant stressors that led Ms. Levi to burnout from her position as a school leader. Was the burnout caused by just one stressor or was it due to a cumulative effect of multiple stressors?

2.  How can school district or district leadership help principals develop coping strategies to handle the stress of their jobs? What programs, policies, or procedures could support this? How might this support differ for tenured principals versus novice ones?

3.  Consider Ms. Levi’s experience with burnout as a function of enrollment and staffing struggles, accountability pressures, and the impact of trauma. In small groups, discuss the following: have you ever experienced burnout in your role as an educator or leader? What caused this burnout? What helped or hindered your experience in overcoming this burnout?

4.  With a group, make a plan for the following: You are on a district leadership team that manages school principals. One of your principals in their second year on the job just announced that they will be stepping down at the end of the year (6 months from now) due to job fatigue that has led to health problems. Make a plan for your next steps. Will you try to convince the principal to stay and add more job support? Will you make a transition plan? If so, how will you ensure the next principal is set up for success in the role? What qualities will you look for in your new principal?