More than Meets the Eye: Rural Principal Turnover and Job-Embeddedness before and during the COVID-19 Pandemic

ABSTRACT

Principals play a critical role in improving schools, but high rates of principal turnover threaten improvement gains. In this study we used a mixed-methods design to examine school, district, and community factors associated with greater principal turnover, and explore how these factors differ for rural schools. We found that rural districts tend to have more first year principals, fewer veteran principals, and higher rates of principal attrition in comparison to their urban and suburban peers. We found that voluntary turnover is not always attributed to school and district working conditions, but also personal and community factors specific to a principal.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. In the Texas Education Agency school-level data, a school’s principal tenure increases by one each year. When principal tenure in any year is equal to one (indicating a principal in their first year in that school), we assume that school had a principal exit in the prior year. We exclude newly opened schools from the sample.

2. While 48% of all schools have a principals with three or fewer years at their schools, 53% of rural schools have principals with three or fewer years, compared to 44% and 45% in urban and suburban schools, respectively.

3. We weighted all district-level averages and figures by student enrollment so that larger districts contribute more to the overall mean. Thus, this mean exit rate for rural districts, when weighted by student enrollment, is interpreted as the principal turnover rate that the average student in an urban, suburban, or rural district experiences (rather than the simple average across districts).

4. The Hatfield-McCoy feud occurring during the 1800s and involved two rural families in West Virginia and Kentucky. The feud has become part of American folklore depicting a bitter and violent rivalry.