Overseeing the day-to-day functioning of a campus, ensuring both teachers and students have the resources they need to learn, and responding to the unforeseen challenges that crop up in the typical school day is no easy task.
Principals’ jobs are hard, and there are plenty of stressors and challenges to keep them awake at night. But what, exactly, are the most common concerns for principals? The EdWeek Research Center asked a nationally representative sample of educators, including principals, this question: “What’s the one thing that’s work related that is keeping you up at night right now?”
While principals are losing some sleep over academics, their answers show they are most worried about having the resources to meet students’ needs, especially their behavioral ones.
Following is our ranking of the top 10 concerns keeping principals up at night in 2024. (You can read what is keeping teachers awake here.)
It’s no surprise that the materials and policies that determine what principals must make sure students are learning in their schools made the list. Principals are on the front line to any changes in curricula and standards, and they worry about not having the resources to properly implement new educational initiatives. A high school principal in Colorado said they lose sleep over “the direction our district is taking regarding academic expectations.”
What, exactly, is being taught in public schools continues to be a major challenge in a politically divided country, likely adding to school leaders’ anxiety.
As leaders of their schools who still must answer to district leadership, principals are in a unique—some might say unenviable—position of middle management in a district’s hierarchy. They are responsible for a lot, yet so much remains outside of their control. With challenges that range from navigating teacher shortages to catching up students academically, principals say they need support.
But they don’t always get that support, survey respondents said. As one high school principal in Ohio said: “The [administrators] in my district do not feel that the superintendent has our back in regards to parents and the [board of education].”
Teacher pay is, for obvious reasons, a major concern for teachers, but it’s keeping principals up at night, too, as they struggle to hire and retain enough teachers. Several principals in the survey linked low teacher pay to their staffing woes.
But many principals have their own concerns about personal finances. In a May survey by the EdWeek Research Center, principals and assistant principals said they earn around $20,000 less than they thought was a fair, annual salary for the work they do.
When parents are engaged in their kids’ education, it can improve students’ academic achievement and motivation, research has found. So, it’s no surprise that parents being disengaged or unsupportive is a concern to school leaders, especially as they are contending with high rates of absenteeism, catching students up academically, and dealing with students’ behavioral issues.
A high school principal in Utah said that he and his fellow principals are losing sleep over “managing student behavior that parents seem to not care about.”
Heated debates over how—or whether—race, religion, gender, and sexuality can be taught or discussed in public schools have been raging in some communities, with principals and other educators perpetually stuck at the center of the storm. Plus a growing political focus on “parents’ rights” and private school choice have left some educators feeling villainized.
The political battles that spill out of statehouses often create extra work for principals. One elementary school principal in Arizona said it’s “the bureaucracy of politics” that keeps principals up at night.
Student achievement and learning is the core function of any school, and while every era and generation has its challenges, the pandemic was an unprecedented shock to the education system that severely stunted students’ academic progress. Many students are still lagging behind where they should be, even as federal resources to address the issue dry up.
“Students who lack basic skills like reading, math facts, and following simple directions” is what keeps a middle school principal in Virginia up at night.
For an elementary school principal in South Carolina, it’s “waiting on state school report card grades.”
Rates of chronic absenteeism—commonly defined as missing 10 percent or more of school days for excused or unexcused reasons—have soared after the pandemic. Teachers are constantly competing with cellphones and social media for students’ attention in class. And, although the poor state of youth mental health is showing some signs of improvement, it’s still concerning, health experts say, with the U.S. surgeon general labeling it the “crisis of our time” last year.
A high school principal in Utah had this sobering response to the question about what keeps principals up at night: “how many students are struggling mentally and don’t care if they live or die.”
The demands on principals are high, and so are the stakes—and it’s driving up their stress levels.
“There are more forms, documentation, computer programs, meetings, trainings, etc., than I can keep up with,” responded an elementary principal in Tennessee. “We are no longer an educational institution—we are social services. Educators are […] flat-out lied about on social media, exposed to violence and life-threatening situations—all for the amount of money that we make. Really???”
Said an elementary principal in Missouri: “The requirements of the job are more than what is humanly possible for teachers and administrators to accomplish. We want to do well for our students, and we feel we are failing them because the demands are so large.”
Another lingering and pernicious effect of the pandemic is the decline in students’ behavior and social skills. One problem that surfaced repeatedly in the survey responses was students’ misuse of social media.
A middle school principal in North Carolina loses sleep over “kids posting terrible things about other students and staff on Instagram, and Instagram not doing anything about it despite us contacting them many times.”
More than a quarter of principals signaled that this was the top concern keeping them up at night. And as pandemic-era federal funding winds down, and teacher shortages, especially in hard-to-staff subjects and in communities with limited resources, remain persistent, these issues will likely be keeping principals up at night for quite some time.
“With the way politics are going, it is getting harder and harder to staff classrooms with qualified educators,” said an elementary principal from Oklahoma.
Meanwhile, “all of the new laws that are being passed and no way to fund them,” is what keeps an elementary principal in Utah awake at night.
And finally, said an elementary principal in New York: “As I prepare to retire in the next 3-5 years, what keeps me up at night is the EXTREME SHORTAGE of competent, skilled, master teachers, and school leaders for the next generation.”
Data analysis for this article was provided by the EdWeek Research Center. Learn more about the center’s work.
