Overview
Similar to teachers, principals who remain at a school year after year gain the respect and trust of the parent, student, and teacher communities. Principals are campus leaders who have a profound impact on the teachers and counselors at a school and the children that they serve.
Retaining effective principals ensures that schools and districts will not have to expend resources to retrain new staff, and avoids disruption to campus life – all of which supports better outcomes for the children in those schools. Not surprisingly, research suggests that principals are second only to teachers in their impact on student achievement – and that principals become more effective as they gain more experience.
Conversely, principal turnover adversely affects schools, with the impact most felt by the most challenging schools. Thus, districts and other education system stakeholders should monitor principal retention to remediate systemic or situational issues causing principals to leave.
Principal Retention Metrics