A Shared Goal: Creating the Conditions for Success
Principals and school business officials approach school improvement from different angles. Principals focus on teaching, learning, and school culture. Business officials oversee budgets, staffing, facilities, and operational systems.
Yet both roles share a common objective: creating the conditions that allow students and educators to thrive.
Because many of these conditions are shaped by staffing, budgeting, professional learning, and operational decisions, effective school leadership depends in part on strong collaboration between principals and school business officials.
For school business officials… investing in principal preparation, support, and retention may be one of the highest-leverage investments a district can make.
A High-Leverage Investment
School business officials are frequently forced to make difficult choices about where to invest limited resources. Principal development is not a single-purpose investment.
Unlike initiatives that focus on one outcome, effective principals influence multiple district priorities simultaneously. In other words, investments in school leadership can create benefits across an entire school system.
For school business officials tasked with maximizing the impact of every dollar, principal development supports multiple district goals at once.
The Cost of Principal Turnover
When principals leave, schools frequently experience disruptions that extend well beyond the leadership position itself. Principal turnover has been consistently linked to increases in teacher turnover and declines in student achievement, particularly in schools serving students with the greatest needs. New leaders often disrupt ongoing initiatives, staff relationships, and improvement efforts that require time to reconstruct and sustain.
School business officials understand the financial costs of turnover. Recruiting, hiring, onboarding, and supporting new principals and teachers require significant resources. And the educational costs can be even greater when leadership instability disrupts school improvement efforts.
Investing in principal preparation, mentoring, coaching, and ongoing support can help districts strengthen leadership retention and avoid the costs associated with repeated turnover.
Four Areas for Collaboration
By aligning leadership priorities with strategic investments, principals and school business officials can work together to strengthen the conditions that support student success.
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Invest in principal learning. Research points to several forms of professional learning that help principals become more effective, including mentoring, coaching, professional networks, job-embedded learning, and high-quality preparation experiences. Business officials can work with district leaders to help ensure these opportunities are prioritized within district budgets, while principals can identify the learning experiences most likely to strengthen instructional leadership and school improvement efforts.
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Build leadership pipelines. Strong school leadership begins long before a principal assumes the role. Districts can reduce leadership shortages and improve continuity by identifying aspiring leaders, providing meaningful leadership experiences, and creating pathways into principalship. Principals play a key role in mentoring future leaders, while business officials can help design sustainable funding models that support leadership development over time. A strong leadership pipeline not only prepares future principals—it helps districts avoid costly leadership vacancies and turnover.
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Prioritize both principal and teacher retention. Teacher shortages remain one of the most pressing challenges facing schools, and research increasingly shows that teacher and principal retention are strongly related. Teachers are more likely to remain in schools where they feel supported, valued, and able to grow professionally. Effective principals create those conditions through strong communication, collaboration, professional learning opportunities, and a positive school culture. School business officials and principals can work together to align staffing decisions, professional development investments, and workplace supports that strengthen educator retention.
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Create systems that support leadership success. Supporting principals requires more than funding professional learning. School business officials can help create the conditions for strong leadership by ensuring manageable workloads, providing access to coaching and mentorship, supporting collaborative learning opportunities, and investing in systems that allow principals to focus on instructional leadership rather than administrative burdens. When principals have the time, support, and resources needed to lead effectively, schools are better positioned to improve outcomes for students and staff alike.
The Principal Effect also highlights an important equity consideration. Principals appear to have particularly strong impacts in schools serving historically underserved students. At the same time, these schools are often more likely to experience leadership instability and turnover.
This means that investments in principal preparation, support, and retention are not simply leadership strategies—they are equity strategies. Ensuring that every school has access to strong, stable leadership can help expand educational opportunities for students who have historically faced the greatest barriers to success.
Looking Beyond Individual Solutions
Too often, districts address attendance, academic recovery, and teacher shortages as separate challenges requiring separate solutions.
The research behind The Principal Effect suggests a different approach. Effective principals influence many of the conditions that drive success across all of these areas. They help create schools where teachers want to work, students feel connected and supported, and continuous improvement becomes part of the culture.
For principals and school business officials, that insight offers a powerful opportunity. By working together to invest in leadership development, support leadership retention, and build strong systems around school leaders, districts can strengthen multiple outcomes at once.
At a time of competing priorities and limited resources, investing in principals is more than a leadership strategy. It is a strategy for strengthening schools, supporting educators, advancing equity, and improving student success.