Teachers’ Perceptions of Principal Leadership Practices That Influence Teacher Turnover

Framing the Problem

A growing body of research points to organizational characteristics, namely administrative leadership, as a primary influence for teacher turnover (Hughes et al., 2014; Jackson, 2012). The majority of teachers leave the profession voluntarily for reasons other than retirement (Ingersoll, 2001, 2003; Podolsky et al., 2016) and many do so early in their career. In fact, 44% of new teachers leave within their first 5 years of teaching (Ingersoll et al., 2018) and evidence suggests the organizational conditions of teaching are the most prominent source of teacher departure (Ingersoll, 2003). The costs are extensive; high-turnover rates burden districts financially in hiring and training expenses as well as hidden costs resulting from changes in the quality and composition of instructional staff (Sorensen & Ladd, 2020). Moreover, these departures negatively affect student learning and disproportionately affect historically marginalized students (Ronfeldt et al., 2013). Teacher turnover is greater in high-poverty schools in urban centers with larger percentages of students of color (Achinstein et al., 2010; Bristol, 2020). The frequent teacher shortages that result are widely considered a major factor in educational inequality (e.g., Ingersoll & May, 2012; National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future, 1996).

Recent scholarship suggests that teachers leave poor school working conditions rather than demographic characteristics of students (i.e., low-income students of color) (Johnson et al., 2012). Additionally, research is clear that administrative leadership substantially shapes organizational characteristics and school climate (Hughes et al., 2014; Simon & Johnson, 2015). As a result, across grade level, contexts, and student demographics, teachers’ perceptions of principal leadership have had the greatest influence on teachers’ decisions to stay in or leave their schools (Boyd et al., 2011; Ladd, 2011; Podolsky et al., 2016). Yet, there is an empirical gap in the literature on how principal leadership informs teachers’ decisions to stay in or leave their schools. Moreover, the practices that principals enact that influence teacher turnover are not clear.

Purpose

The researchers conducted in-depth case studies, including observations and interviews of 32 teachers across two high-turnover and two low-turnover middle schools in one urban public school district, to examine teachers’ perceptions of principals’ leadership practices. Specifically, the research explored teachers’ perceptions of effective and ineffective leadership practices that influenced their decisions to stay in or leave their schools. To explore teachers’ perceptions of principal leadership, we were guided by the following research question: How do teachers in two high-turnover and two low-turnover urban public middle schools describe their principals’ leadership practices?

Urban Education

As Milner’s (2012) overview on the topic demonstrated, a single, agreed-upon definition of urban evades education scholarship, despite its widespread use. Depending on the context, the word brings up dramatically different connotations and images. Leonardo and Hunter (2007) described urban as discursively and socially constructed, both an imagined and a real place. They mapped out three distinct and often contradictory meanings as (a) urbane, cosmopolitan, and sophisticated; (b) authentic spaces of community organizing, resistance, and identity; and (c) “jungle.” This last meaning, and its negative connotations, frequently accompanies “urban schools.” Urban, as a longstanding, albeit vague (Welsh & Swain, 2020), euphemistic school descriptor (Foster, 2007), often implies failure, embodying a pathology of urban students and their families as well as normative expectations of disorganization (Leonardo & Hunter, 2007; Welsh & Swain, 2020).

Moreover, some critical urban education scholars have worked to conceptualize urban to combat deficit perspectives within the descriptor. As Pink and Noblit (2007) cautioned in The International Handbook of Urban Education, the challenges that characterize urban education are a by-product of historic and ongoing disinvestments from central governments to urban centers. Instead, researchers must not lose sight of the complex ways education is structured by power, access to power, and status for others. In their edited volume of The Handbook of Urban Education, Milner and Lomotey (2014) summarized how the contributors defined urban education:

(1) the size of the city in which schools are located: dense, large, metropolitan areas; (2) the students in the schools: a wide range of student diversity, including racial, ethnic, religious, language, and socioeconomic; and (3) the resources: the amount and number of resources available in a school, such as technology and financial structures through federal programs as well as property taxes. (p. 15)

These conceptualizations also attend to how urban spaces and schools come to be and how they are positioned within a larger sociopolitical context of inequality, thus challenging deficit perspectives and victim-blaming.

As Darling-Hammond (2014) wrote, the concentration of inequality and segregation in urban schools was not inevitable, even as it has become widespread. Not all students of color attend urban schools, but urban schools serve the majority of students of color in the United States. Similarly, not all urban schools and communities are characterized by poverty, but urban schools are more likely to include students with poorer educational opportunities (Milner & Lomotey, 2014). Throughout the United States, Black and Latinx students are more likely to attend under-resourced schools where their peers come from working-class families (Noguera & Syeed, 2020; U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, 2018). As the nation’s student body becomes more diverse, poor students of color face increased “double segregation” by race and class (Noguera & Syeed, 2020, p. 20; also see Boschma & Brownstein, 2016). The urban schools that poor students of color attend are often underfunded, subject to more hierarchical controls (Diamond & Spillane, 2004), and characterized by great “educational debt” (Ladson-Billings, 2006). Yet, urban public schools represent perhaps the only remaining open-access publicly funded institutions in urban neighborhoods (Noguera & Syeed, 2020) and a space for gathering many community assets and capital that are under-discussed and under-documented in scholarship (Welsh & Swain, 2020; Yosso, 2005). Thus, urban schools face distinct challenges that are shaped by factors both outside and inside of their walls, and conceptualization of urban schools should not be decoupled from these contexts nor and the strengths of their students and communities.

Urban Leadership and the Role of the Principal in Shaping School Climate

Definitions of effective leadership in urban schools require attention to the complexity of both the organizational dynamics of schools and their sociopolitical contexts. Policy narratives that reduce the characterization of schools or the causes for urban school challenges to singular dimensions—either determined by societal inequalities or individual school-level actors—limit robust analysis of urban schooling (Flessa, 2009; Flessa & Ketelle, 2007). Concerning leadership, falling into this pervasive pattern of divergent analysis in education research risks either entirely shifting the responsibility for principals to heroically save under-resourced schools heroically with managerial fixes (Copland, 2001; Flessa, 2009; Ingersoll & May, 2012; see also Kozol, 1991; Trujillo & Scott, 2014) or overshadowing what strong leaders can accomplish in schools (Flessa, 2009; Noguera & Syeed, 2020) within their social context. Principals are constrained in what they can change because they must respond to local central office and school board demands in addition to macro policy contexts that increasingly limit autonomy and stress accountability (Horsford et al., 2019). However, principals can demonstrate agency and influence in what type of culture they create and sustain within the walls of their schools that support student and teacher learning (Dantley & Tillman, 2010; Griffith, 2004). One specific way is to enact social justice leadership practices or replace unjust policies with culturally affirming ones (DeMatthews et al., 2017).

Understandings of the role of principals and what is within their influence have shifted through the decades. A traditional focus on managerial leadership—highlighting a principal’s responsibility to create technical routines and norms, monitor, and evaluate—has given way to an instructional leadership focus—highlighting the importance of establishing educational goals, curricula, and teacher learning (Crow & Scribner, 2014; Earley & Weindling, 2004; Horsford et al., 2019). In the late 1990s, research on transformational leadership expanded the frame to encompass a leader’s ability to build organizational capacity for change through a shared vision, teacher empowerment and distributed leadership, and relational trust (Jantzi & Leithwood, 1996; Leithwood, 1994; Spillane et al., 2001). Later scholarship has brought together transformational leadership and instructional leadership (Day et al., 2016; Marks & Printy, 2003); the merging of these two conceptual frames has led to a “Leadership for Learning” framework that underscores the importance of shared leadership practices (Pietch et al., 2019). These portraits stress the integral role principals play in shaping school climate, and through this direct impact on staff satisfaction, how principals have an indirect effect on student learning and achievement (Hallinger & Heck, 1996).

When it comes to school climate and teacher turnover, school administrative leadership has been characterized as the most salient dimension of shaping teachers’ working conditions (Bryk et al., 2010; Ladd, 2011). This importance reframes previous conclusions that teachers’ decisions to leave were linked primarily to student demographics, specifically a higher percentage of students of color or low-income students. Instead, this focus draws attention to the impact of leadership on school working conditions (Simon & Johnson, 2015). A convincing body of research has found that teachers’ perceptions of principal leadership impact teacher decisions to stay or leave (Billingsley & Cross, 1992; Boyd et al., 2011; Ingersoll, 2015; Podolsky et al., 2016). Moreover, principal leadership may have an even greater impact on turnover in schools serving historically marginalized youth (Grissom, 2011).

However, there is less evidence about the school-based conditions that characterize effective principal leadership and its relationship to teacher turnover. What constitutes effective school administrative leadership according to teachers has been hard to parse out as studies have measured administrative leadership in different ways, many relying on a broad definition of principal leadership. For example, in exploring the link between teachers’ perceptions of their working conditions and turnover, Ladd (2011) employed a quantitative analysis to measure principal leadership in one composite variable, which included discipline, trust, and shared decision making. This broad analysis recognized that effective leaders may possess a variety of strengths, and one facet may not be more important than another (Leithwood, 1994); moreover, a single variable can help distinguish between impact on principal leadership and other working conditions (Ladd, 2011). School working conditions and principal leadership practices are interrelated and aggregate variables that provide insight into cumulative impact on teacher turnover (Ingersoll & May, 2012). However, aggregated definitions of principal leadership limit attention to particular practices that may be more meaningful in shaping the school organizational context.

There is evidence of the characteristics of leadership practices that teachers value in principals. Researchers identified several school-building leader practices that characterize administrative support, namely a willingness to share power or seek input in decision making (Brown & Wynn, 2009; Ingersoll, 2001; Marinell & Coca, 2013; Wahlstrom & Louis, 2008); organizing for productive collegial work (Johnson et al., 2005); providing emotional and environmental support (Hughes et al., 2014; Johnson et al., 2005); expressing clear expectations about successful enactment of job-embedded tasks (Price, 2012); sharing similar values about supporting student learning (Brown & Wynn, 2009); and establishing trust (Youngs & King, 2002).

A Move Toward Teacher-Centered Qualitative Analysis

In this article, we sought to add to existing research by using teacher-centered qualitative methods to understand how teachers perceive strong principal leadership and how it impacts teacher turnover in four urban middle schools. To date, the research on teachers’ perceptions of principal leadership has overwhelmingly relied on survey analysis. For example, Ingersoll (2001) and Grissom (2011) used the Schools and Staffing Survey and the supplemental Teacher Follow-up Survey to gain a large, nationally representative sample of public and private school teachers to explore the influences of teacher departure, self-transfer (moving to another school), and exit. While quantitative analysis provided evidence on the characteristics of strong principal leadership and, in some cases, was able to link perceptions to teacher career decisions, this method does not allow one to understand the underlying mechanisms that characterize strong principal leadership. Researchers have called for more qualitative studies (Boyd et al., 2011; Stanley, 2021) to complement quantitative work on principal practices that create the conditions to support teaching and learning. Such qualitative research has the potential to provide a finer-grained, more nuanced understanding of how teachers describe effective and ineffective principal leadership practices and offers the possibility of attending to context-specific dimensions within urban schools.

Recent qualitative research has drawn attention to the school-building leader practices that enable positive working conditions. For example, through semi-structured interviews with principals at schools with low attrition rates, Brown and Wynn (2009) identified principal practices that supported teacher retention, such as an awareness of the challenges teachers face, providing teachers with the resources to enact high-quality teaching, and a flexible but firm commitment to excellence. Stanley (2021) interviewed five Black teachers and found relational and philosophical tensions with school leaders to be one of three major reasons influencing teacher turnover decisions. Likewise, in a multi-year, multi-site study, Youngs and King (2002) found that effective principals can facilitate school capacity by establishing trust, creating structures for teachers to engage in ongoing professional development, and supporting teachers’ internal reform efforts.

However, more research that focuses on teacher perceptions of leadership is needed as this perspective is often missing (Walker et al., 2019). Ambiguous descriptions of “good principal” fail to capture attributes that teachers value and thus offer little on what impacts turnover. While leader self-evaluation helps tell part of the story, principals’ perceptions of strong leadership may differ from teachers’ perceptions. This gap between principals and teachers can be true in terms of both what qualities matter to teachers versus principals and the degree to which a principal possesses or demonstrates those qualities. Grissom and Loeb (2009) found a negative correlation between teacher satisfaction and administration efficiency; there was no association between teachers who perceived their principals as having expertise in technical aspects of being an administrator (e.g., creating school schedules) and teacher satisfaction. Furthermore, principal self-evaluation of the teacher-principal relationship did not equate with teachers’ perceptions (Hughes et al., 2014; “Principals, Here’s How Teachers View You,” 2019). Recent research has indicated that teachers’ perceptions of school leaders are most related to components within a principal’s control and have minimal relationship to contextual factors outside of a principal’s control, suggesting the further importance of teachers’ perspectives (Bristol & Esboldt, 2020; Blackwell & Young, 2021). Thus, as researchers continue to explore organizational and leadership factors related to teacher turnover, it is useful to turn to qualitative descriptions directly from teachers.

Finally, more research is needed on the mechanisms that lead to teacher turnover in middle schools. There is indication that attention to particular middle school factors matter in thinking about school climate and principal leadership. Scholarship on middle school leadership is characterized by, on average, by top-down, uncollaborative orientations, despite the presence of structures that might afford a more distributive approach (Clark & Clark, 2003). Given that most middle school teacher preparation lacks a middle-level focus, a sustained, teacher-centered professional development may be particularly meaningful for supporting teachers toward equity and excellence (Clark & Clark, 2004) and, ultimately, deciding to stay or leave teaching. Moreover, despite continued attention to teacher attrition, research specific to middle school turnover is minimal (Mee & Haverback, 2014), despite evidence that turnover of middle school teachers is pervasive and widespread across different teacher characteristics (Marinell & Coca, 2013). To that end, we sought to answer the following research question: How do teachers in two high-turnover and two low-turnover urban public middle schools describe their principals’ leadership practices?

Setting and Sample

This research was part of a larger study that explored organizational factors affecting teacher turnover at the middle school level in one large urban district which drew on in-depth, semi-structured interviews and observations at four case study schools: two low-turnover schools (Eastside, Southern Boulevard) and two high-turnover schools (Roseville, Memorial). These schools were chosen based on several factors, including: the city’s peer index value, a turnover statistic created by a research associate, location, start date, percentage of students passing the state math and ELA exams, percentage of students in poverty, percentage of African American and Latinx students, number of teachers, change in number of regular education teachers over a 1-year period, and number of principals each school had in a 4-year period. Ultimately, we selected four high-poverty case sites that had experienced different degrees of turnover for a 10-year period to facilitate comparative case studies (Johnson et al., 2005).

Data Collection

Data collection took place over the duration of one school year and consisted of two rounds of interviews with teachers, assistant principals, and principals in conjunction with observations. The first round of interviews, revised after a pilot study, started with each principal; then, teachers were selected using a School Excessing Seniority List. The protocol was broken into five sections: (a) Introduction/Background; (b) Professional Development and Professional Community; (c) Leadership and Organizational Decision Making; (d) Relationships with Students and Families; and (e) Career Plans/Conclusion. The questions were designed to learn about each teacher’s background and obtain a clear picture of what it was like to teach in their school, including topics like the principal’s leadership style, treatment by the principal, support offered, and so on. The goal of the principal interview protocol was to see how the principal’s perceptions of the teachers’ experiences compared with information teachers provided during their interviews. For the second round, we drew on a preliminary analysis of the data using NVivo 8 to record themes and then adding site-specific questions. In total, 93 interviews were conducted.

With a protocol developed by the research team, we conducted 32 observations to take a more nuanced look at teachers and principals in their daily work environments and develop cross-site comparisons (Yin, 2014). A total of 32 observations took place in hallways, the main office, team meetings, and faculty meetings, but not in classrooms because of IRB restrictions.

Data Analysis

Rather than using previously defined categories of strong principal leadership, this study drew on the words of teachers to identify inductively what characteristics they found salient to strong principal leadership. Data collection and analysis were ongoing processes, each constantly informing the other. After each visit and as interviews were transcribed, we used analytic memoing to summarize the observations and reflect on insights or connections for future analysis (Miles et al., 2014). Using NVivo 8, we created coding rules and schema, and then coded the data. We then developed hypotheses and tested them by querying the data. We used iterative explanation building (Yin, 2014) and cross-case analysis to establish findings (Miles et al., 2014). To establish a high-quality cross-case synthesis, we used all the evidence gathered, considered all plausible rival interpretations, attended to the most significant aspects of the cases, and used prior knowledge (Yin, 2014). The entire process relied on our iterative explanation building (Yin, 2014) until the salient story at each case study site became clear.

Recognizing Teachers as Knowledgeable Contributors to Student Learning

Teachers at all four schools described their principals’ recognition of them as knowledgeable contributors to teaching and learning as an enabling characteristic that supported strong school working conditions. Specifically, teachers pointed to the ways their administrators respected teachers’ input both in the school as a whole and within their own classroom, gave space for individualized instructional adjustments, and supported their continued learning. How teachers talked about this phenomenon was not universal, but there were patterns in responses of admiration for principals who publicly communicated trust for teachers’ judgments and ideas and implemented support for teachers’ professional growth.

Teachers at the low-turnover schools Southern Boulevard and Eastside described their principals as routinely allowing and encouraging them to make instructional decisions in their classrooms; moreover, they said administrators also sought their input on school-wide decisions. They commonly used words such as “freedom,” “autonomy,” and a lack of being “domineering” when describing their principals’ leadership practice. As a Southern Boulevard teacher noted, the freedom to choose classroom content was one of the reasons they appreciated their principal and respected her leadership. To them, principals created positive environments by exhibiting trust in the teachers’ professional judgment—“not looking over your shoulder,” to use the words of a Southern Boulevard teacher. Southern Boulevard teachers’ beliefs about their principal mirrored the characteristics of transformational leadership such as teacher empowerment and distributed leadership (Leithwood, 1994; Spillane et al., 2001). Put simply, the teachers felt their leaders enacted what the principal of Southern Boulevard was known to say, according to one teacher: “Do good by my children, and I will back you up.”

Teachers at both low-turnover schools described their principals as honoring their professional judgments by allowing space to modify classroom decisions. As one teacher at Southern Boulevard said, “She allows you to come to her and say, ‘Well’Well, this is not working. I am going to do this instead.’ And she’ll look and say, ‘Try’Try that, but let me know what’s going on. . .’. . . For me, it’s just that she allows you to be you.” As Brown and Wynn (2009) highlighted, one characteristic of principals who lead schools with low rates of teacher turnover is their capacity to honor teachers’ professional expertise. An Eastside teacher echoed this sentiment in the professional freedom the principal provided to choose what sources she drew on for the curriculum. She described herself and her colleagues as “lucky,” given that their

administrators. . .aren’t necessarily like, “You have to do it word for word exactly.” They do give you some freedom.. . . I like making up my own units of study and kinda creating things based on that or based on the feel I was getting from my class.

This freedom allowed teachers to draw on their expertise as educators and respond flexibly to what they identified as their students’ needs.

Additionally, Southern Boulevard and Eastside teachers talked positively about how their leaders sought their opinions on school improvement. Teachers provided concrete examples of how school leaders listened to and subsequently implemented their ideas in the school community. Teachers characterized their leaders as “team players” who asked for their input. Such affective relationships increase teachers’ overall job satisfaction (Price, 2012). Although these particular teachers noted the status and authority differential, they felt as if their knowledge, questions, and thoughts on subjects mattered to the principals. As one Eastside teacher described:

She was extremely open to all of my ideas, but, at the same time, she knew what was needed, so you take what’s needed and you take my ideas and you kind of fuse them together and find something that works for you.

Another Eastside teacher echoed this, adding that the principal’s practice of listening to teachers’ concerns made them feel like “an important part of the school” and “more valuable here than I would be somewhere else.”

Southern Boulevard and Eastside teachers also characterized strong administrative leadership as the routine opportunities principals provided for their professional growth. At times, this support for growth appeared in formalized structures such as professional development. Teachers spoke positively about how administrators encouraged them to incorporate new ideas from in-school PD into their classrooms. Previous research also found that administrators’ ongoing support of their teachers’ professional learning is associated with increased retention (Hughes et al., 2014). One Eastside teacher described an ongoing sense of “How can you improve?” that kept him wanting to be “on [his] toes,” as well as continuous conversation that included literature related to equitable praxis that “the principal always brings” to meetings and conversations.

This support for growth also manifested in cultures of high yet supportive expectations. Teachers spoke positively about accountability for teachers in relation to support. One Southern Boulevard teacher said her principal “demands a lot of her teachers. . .and as well she supports teachers.” Teachers referred to this high demand in terms of working with students in the classroom as well as building potential for taking on larger roles in the future. For example, an Eastside teacher described the principal as “trying to empower our staff so that we can assume leadership roles and assist and help build community here.”

In contrast, teachers at Roseville described the principal’s regard for their contributions with ambivalence. Several teachers said their principal was willing to listen to teachers’ ideas, much like the Southern Boulevard and Eastside administrators. As one Roseville teacher noted, the principal is “not on your back. He gives you something and expects you to do it.” Another teacher expressed a belief that their principal would be “very receptive” to hearing the teachers’ ideas. However, throughout these descriptions, Roseville teachers believed their principal did not have the capacity to act on and implement teachers’ proposals. For them, there was often a lack of follow-through or support around implementing their suggestions. As Simon and Johnson (2015) noted, one characteristic of principals in high-turnover schools is that administrators are unable to create a school culture that values teachers’ ideas. One Roseville teacher posed:

I believe he should be more supportive with the staff. Okay, you listen to us, but what are you going to do about it? Listening is something, but if you don’t do anything about our concern, nothing is going to get better.

Likewise, another teacher suggested teachers’ autonomy went perhaps too far, and the principal failed to provide guidance for implementation. According to another teacher, the leader was a bit “lackadaisical.” While Roseville teachers did not describe their principal as controlling, they did not feel a sense of support and empowerment, despite the opportunity for autonomy. Many Roseville teachers expressed uncertainty about their teaching plans for the following year.

Communicating Clearly the School’s Vision Around High-Quality Teaching

The second theme that emerged from teachers’ descriptions of an enabling leadership practice that created positive school working conditions was clear and continuous communication of the school’s vision around teaching and learning. Previous research has highlighted principals’ capacity to communicate clearly the school’s goals for supporting student learning as one key characteristic in organizing urban schools for improvement (Bryk et al., 2010). Teachers at the low-turnover schools expressed appreciation for their principals’ readiness and proactivity to share information and the “whys” behind it at the individual, staff, and community levels.

These same teachers praised their school leaders for routinely providing feedback on their teaching and being transparent about leadership decisions. As one Eastside teacher said, “I didn’t get from where I was as a first-year teacher to where I am now by not getting honest feedback. I feel it’s the honest feedback that allows me to build as a teacher.” Another Eastside teacher described the teacher-administrator observation feedback process as helpful and ongoing. The teacher stated that if recommendations the principal shared did not make sense, he was willing to help teachers in the implementation. “It’s not like you come in and they say, ‘Da, da, da, da, da, da, da’, and leave and you never see them again. If you’re not sure about something, ask them and they will be more than willing to help you, give you advice as to things you should do.”

In addition, teachers at Southern Boulevard and Eastside valued their principals’ honest communication about the reason or motivation behind implementing school-wide initiatives, even when teachers disagreed about those decisions. Such opportunities for open and honest communication by principals to and with their teachers have come to redefine the more expansive roles of an effective school leader (Crow & Scribner, 2014). For example, one Southern Boulevard teacher noted that they have clarity on school initiatives because of their principal’s communication. She added that even when “we might not agree. . .we understand where it’s coming from.” This teacher continued that, at times, decisions are made from senior district leaders and the principal “is just ensuring that things are actually followed through,” while other times the disagreement might be between teachers and administrators. However, this teacher spoke at length about how her “trust” in her principal’s earnest desire to improve how teachers teach and students learn led to believing that “ultimately at the end of the day,” the principal—not teachers—has “to make a call” and has the years of experience to do so. This respect was reflected in another Southern Boulevard teacher’s description of the principal’s ability to be clear on goals and incorporate the perspective of other teachers: “She’s a team player and she’s clear. She’s clear about what she wants.”

Finally, teachers in the low-turnover schools believed their principals’ forthcoming communication extended beyond the principal-teacher relationship to include positive communication with the community. One Southern Boulevard teacher described their leader as “involved in communication and constantly talking to kids, parents,” and the larger community. Overall, the teachers appreciated the leaders’ widespread network of communication in the ways it fostered a sense of community and support.

However, the case of Roseville suggested that established trust may be necessary before any form of communication is deemed effective. Unlike Southern Boulevard and Eastside, teachers at Roseville did not trust that their principal prioritized supporting teachers’ continuous improvement. Bryk et al. (2010) noted that relational trust between principal and teacher is one of the first organizational prerequisites for urban schools to improve. Roseville teachers described the important prerequisite of leader trust for generous communication. Teachers expressed a desire for the school’s leader to respond to teacher dissatisfaction directly and have these discussions “out in the open” rather than following the principal’s current practice of denying there was an issue. One teacher described that their leader “won’t say anything to you directly. He won’t confront you about it, but then he’s spiteful,” and the tension will passively manifest in the principal-teacher relationships in “other ways.”

Interestingly, the case of Roseville also suggested that principals have the capacity to change their leadership practice when faced by an imminent threat. Mid-way through the year, the school district identified Roseville for potential closure due to multiple years of student underperformance. One teacher believed the possibility of the school’s closure shifted their administrator’s communication: “He began letting us talk more and express our concerns.” However, for some teachers, this increased communication may not have been enough to overcome the shortcomings of previous patterns. As one teacher described it:

Like, “Okay, it’s gonna close down, let’s everyone leave.” Then [teachers are] also—they’re frustrated with operating under the same administration and they failed. Now that we have got the notice that, you know, we’re facing closure, they feel like, “You know what? Hung in, didn’t produce anything, so goodbye.”

Ultimately, not all the teachers at Roseville believed this shift in leadership practice of allowing teachers to express their concerns about school working conditions would make a difference. Many teachers expressed that they were still considering leaving.

Centering Student Learning Alongside Teacher Learning

Finally, teachers across all four schools described strong leadership in the enactment of principals publicly centering student learning. The public centering of student learning included recognition of school leaders’ commitments to students as well as their willingness to pursue that vision in ways that allowed all members of the school community to see. Dantley and Tillman (2010) described effective principals leading urban schools as being able to center and advocate for the needs of their historically marginalized students. Teachers at Eastside, Southern Boulevard, and Memorial all spoke about the importance of principal leadership that is, “here for the kids” and has a “priority on kids first.” However, there were differences in how principals in the high- and low-turnover schools supported students; teachers described strong leadership practices as principals prioritizing support for both students and teachers.

At Southern Boulevard and Eastside, teachers expressed admiration for the involvement of principals who demonstrated a clear commitment to students. As a Southern Boulevard teacher noted, “I think [our principal] is actually a very strong leader, and she has some very focused visions and goals, and she knows where she wants her kids to be, and she kind of extends that and tries to do everything.” Other teachers at the same school echoed this, noting the multiple ways in which the principal was involved in the school. At Eastside, teachers described their leader as “rigorous” who “does what she has to do and makes sure that everybody does it.” Other teachers echoed the “passion” and “dedication” from their leader who had a clear vision and was “not fumbling around.” They also spoke of how good it felt to be working with someone who was “modeling what professionalism is,” and noted how their principal was “more than willing to go the extra mile for any child.”

Teachers saw leaders engaged in public actions that demonstrated student support and expressed appreciation that their principal’s value of centering students was not limited to “behind closed doors.” Several teachers talked about the different locations throughout the school in which they had grown accustomed to seeing their principal throughout the day. From walking the hallways to dropping in on classrooms, teachers spoke positively about being able to see their principal participating in meaningful action—“trying to improve student achievement,” as one Eastside teacher described. Teachers also talked positively about the variety of tasks in which their principals participated. While teachers mentioned responsibilities and work such as leading staff meetings and administration, most positive comments centered on teachers’ perceptions of principals being visible as they did little things. As one Southern Boulevard participant put it, “Even though she’s the leader, she’s a team player, so you’ll see her in classrooms teaching and you’ll see her walking the hallways and picking [trash] up and telling kids to go to class. . .” Another teacher described the principal as being “incredibly involved in every single way.” In both cases, Southern Boulevard and Eastside teachers not only believed in their leaders’ passion for students but seemed to witness it regularly in action.

In contrast, the principal at Memorial demonstrated great care for supporting student learning; however, unlike Southern and Eastside principals, attention to supporting student learning did not extend to developing teacher learning. In many ways, teachers at Memorial characterized their principal as a social justice leader (DeMatthews et al., 2017). She was a fierce advocate for attempting to improve the lives of the historically marginalized students at her school. Memorial teachers described her as present in the school, visibly walking the halls, and deeply committed to improving student learning. One Memorial teacher said, “She cares a lot about the children, and I think she just puts a lot of her emotion into how she feels when she doesn’t see education taking place.”

While student support was important at Memorial, there appeared to be a lack of accompanying support for teachers. Teachers expressed that the attention provided to supporting students came at the expense of supporting teachers. One teacher argued that good leadership must support both teachers and students. The teacher appreciated the principal’s intensity around centering student learning, but felt the leader’s approach was one-sided.

So, some people read into that differently, but if you’re looking through [the principal’s] eyes, just pretend it’s your child. And if you walk into a classroom and you don’t see something, you’re going to be upset.

The teacher continued to say the principal continually told teachers that students were their “clients.” The teacher critiqued this belief: “It is presented in a manner where the students can never do anything wrong, and the teachers can never do anything right. We’re undermined and undermanned in every sense of the word.” Similarly, another teacher offered an example of how she saw this come to be:

You can’t chastise adults in front of kids and take away their power. . .. If you have a problem with me, let’s talk. I’m not one to negate or try to deflect criticism. If I’m in the wrong, I’m in the wrong. The truth just perceives everything. So if I’m in the wrong, pull me to the side and let me know: “This is what I don’t like—what I saw in the classroom today.”

In these two examples, the teachers capture the careful balance they desired from their principal of supporting and centering student learning and needs while also honoring and attending to the teachers’ positioning and needs.

In the end, we observed one key difference when examining teachers’ perceptions of social justice leadership, as conceptualized by DeMatthews et al. (2017), across high- and low-turnover schools. According to teachers at Memorial, while they associated their principal’s practices with social justice leadership, her inability to support teacher learning is what influenced their work dissatisfaction. Across high- and low-turnover schools, teachers underscored the importance of principals showing up for students but noted this was not enough from an administrator. The case of Memorial ultimately provides some nuance to our final theme of publicly centering student learning; for teachers at Memorial, a principal’s commitment to student learning is crucial, but does not fully characterize strong leadership if a principal is unable to, simultaneously, center student and teacher learning.

Research

Future research should explore the degree to which these principal leadership practices influence actual teacher turnover. Previous research has identified administrative leadership as the primary driver for teacher turnover (Bristol, 2020; Simon & Johnson, 2015). To extend the literature on the organizational characteristics of schools with low turnover, we focus on principal leadership practices. We have identified several practices, namely (a) recognizing teachers as knowledgeable contributors to student learning; (b) clearly communicating the school’s vision around high-quality teaching; and (c) centering student learning alongside teacher learning. What we were unable to do was to examine the degree to which the aforementioned principal practices are, indeed, associated with teachers’ decisions to stay in or leave their schools in the subsequent years. This should be a focus of future research.

Policy

To increase teacher job satisfaction, policymakers should invest in and incentivize principals’ continuous professional learning. Teachers’ job satisfaction and decisions to stay in or leave their schools are associated with administrative leadership (Ladd, 2011; Podolsky et al., 2016). While state policymakers incentivize teachers’ continuous improvement through engaging in professional learning to receive provisional and permanent certification, they have not incentivized learning opportunities for principals. A growing body of research has shown that teachers’ learning does not plateau but, rather, continues to grow when professional development is responsive to the context in which they teach (Darling-Hammond, 2015). Similar to teachers, state departments of education should consider creating provisional and permanent certifications that require principals to engage in ongoing professional learning that may have the potential to increase teacher satisfaction and reduce turnover.

Practice

Principals in high-turnover schools should receive a coach who is focused on developing and deepening their principal practice. As highlighted throughout this article, teacher turnover is correlated with the principal’s capacity to create and sustain a positive work environment (Bristol, 2020; Simon & Johnson, 2015). As such, to improve teacher working conditions, principals will need ongoing support on how to develop and maintain positive work environments. School districts, particularly those serving historically marginalized students, have provided induction coaches for novice teachers. However, novice principals, as well as principals who are characterized by teachers as having weak administrative leadership, do not have access to a coach who can support continuous improvement. Additionally, principals may want to develop their own mechanisms for receiving ongoing feedback from teachers to identify how their leadership practices are influencing teachers’ decisions to stay in or leave the school. For example, principals may consider administering confidential surveys asking teachers to describe the degree to which teachers feel supported, as well as what additional supports teachers need to teach in ways that support student learning.