California principals are facing shrinking budgets and mounting responsibilities to lead teachers and keep schools running—creating competing pressures that may make the job untenable, a new survey shows.
Principals reported working 60 to 70 hours a week. As budget cuts thinned the ranks of support staff, they juggled roles as teachers, community liaisons, nurses, athletic directors, crisis managers, and budget gurus.
“Even if a principal can do each of several things well, it is tremendously difficult to do them all well at the same time,” concludes the report by the Center for the Future of Teaching and Learning at WestEd, a San Francisco-based research nonprofit.
