Principals are leaving Pa. schools more often than ever before

Principals are leaving Pennsylvania schools at higher-than-ever rates, a new analysis found.

Across the state, 15.4% of principals left Pennsylvania schools between 2021-22 and 2022-23, according to a new study out of the Penn State Center for Education Evaluation and Policy Analysis. The 4.2 percentage-point jump marks the state’s highest annual exodus on record.

The increase in principal departures comes amid nationwide teacher shortages, with many districts struggling to fill jobs and keep educators from leaving them. A recent study from the same Penn State institute found that the state’s teachers are also leaving at a record pace.

But while much attention has gone to teacher attrition, a stable principal’s office might matter even more to a school’s success, said Ed Fuller, the education professor behind both studies.

“I would argue principal turnover is more important than teacher turnover,” said Fuller. “One of the really important ways to address teacher turnover is to have good, quality leadership. If you have constant leader turnover, you can’t create a high-performing school.”

Principals affect not just teacher turnover, but also school climate and student achievement, he noted.

The high rate of principal attrition doesn’t surprise Robin Cooper, president of the Commonwealth Association of School Administrators (CASA), the Philadelphia School District administrators’ union. Leading students through a pandemic was difficult work, and the aftereffects will linger for years.

“The work was already difficult, but it’s intensified to such a degree that it becomes not worth it for a lot of people,” said Cooper, a veteran administrator herself. “People are choosing their mental health, and when they can get out, they’re getting out.”

The Penn State study found that high school principals were the most likely to leave with a 16.9% attrition rate, followed by middle school leaders at 13.8% and then, elementary school principals at 12.5%.

Black female principals had the highest attrition rate of 19%, meaning nearly one in five Black women left their principal positions between 2022 and 2023. Black males had the next-highest departure rate of 17.4%. White female principals’ attrition rate was 15.5% while white males fell 1% lower to 14.5%.

The departure of Black principals is worrisome, said Fuller. In Philadelphia, there are already fewer Black teachers than there were 20 years ago, even though the overall numbers of teachers remains the same, according to a 2022 report by Research for Action, a Philadelphia-based education research group that has been tracking teacher diversity in the state.

“These continued high attrition rates, coupled with lower numbers of individuals of color entering the teaching profession, will reduce the percentage of principals of color in Pennsylvania,” he said.

Principals at schools with highest concentration of students of color were more prone to leave their jobs than principals at more racially diverse schools, and charter school principals were more likely to depart than leaders of traditional public schools — there was a 32.8% attrition rate for charter school principals, and 13.2% for traditional public school principals.

Attrition rates were also highest among principals in the poorest schools systems; 14.2%, compared to 12.7% for principals in the wealthiest districts.

“Schools serving children who are most often in need of experienced and stable leadership are least likely to provide children with these resource,” Fuller found.

Veteran principals transition well into other areas, said Cooper, from the union that represents Philly principals.

“They know instruction, they know operations. These other areas pick them up; they’re valuable,” said Cooper.

According to the Pennsylvania Department of Education, more than half of the principals who left between 2022 and 2023 took jobs elsewhere in Pennsylvania traditional public and charter schools. Many of those who stayed in Pennsylvania landed in other, non-principalship or assistant superintendent leadership roles.

To fix high principal attrition rates, Fuller said, districts and policymakers should increase principal salaries, provide incentives for those principals who take on hard-to-staff schools, and launch a statewide principal working conditions survey to better understand what makes principals leave — and stay — in Pennsylvania schools.