Why do more than half of principals quit after five years?
New principal struggles to find balance in ever-changing role
Principal Krystal Hardy talks to students during a ‘community meeting’ at Sylvanie Williams College Prep elementary school, on January 16, 2015 in New Orleans, Louisiana. Hardy spends most of her time out of her office mentoring teachers and staff and spending time with the children. She is the face of the new type of principal. Fifty percent of the children here started the year below grade level in reading and math. The goal is to help them catch up and keep making progress. No reproduction. Photo: Melanie Stetson Freeman/The Christian Science Monitor
NEW ORLEANS — It’s a few minutes before 8 a.m. and Krystal Hardy, the principal of Sylvanie Williams College Prep elementary, a charter school in New Orleans, is greeting a line of third-graders as they shuffle down the hall.
“I like the way you keep your eyes forward and your voice turned off,”
she says to a student with a green bow in her hair who has been ignoring a whispered conversation behind her. The girl shoots Hardy a cautious smile.
“Tuck in that shirt,” Hardy says to another. The young boy hastily shoves his green polo shirt into his khaki pants. “We need you to be ready to learn, so you need to look like you’re ready to learn,” says Hardy.
It’s the second full week of instruction at the start of the second year of Hardy’s tenure as principal. The administrator, a wiry, intense young woman, is cautiously optimistic. This time last year, she and thousands of other public school principals around the country began their first year in the front office and stepped directly into what many consider one of the toughest jobs in America.
And the most important. In the age of the knowledge economy, education increasingly shapes the future success of individuals as well as nations. So The Hechinger Report and the Christian Science Monitor decided to follow a principal through her inaugural year at a struggling urban school to find out how hard the job really is, how it’s changed, and what this reveals about the state of American education.
Being a school principal has never been easy, of course. Traditionally, the role was like being the chief executive officer and face of the school. The principal hired teachers, interpreted directives from the district and state, and balanced the budget (in theory). Day to day, this meant wrestling with innumerable smaller tasks: handling the concerns of parents, disciplining unruly kids, Why do more than half of principals quit after five years? - The Hechinger Report:
