October 2024: Teacher Opinions about the Principalship

Communication skills and developing positive relationships with students headlines what’s important for the principalship through the eyes and minds of teachers

In celebration of National Principal Month, our October survey looked at insight into how teachers view the principalship, specifically around the components that make a strong principal. We emailed these questions to those who have identified as teachers (current, or retired). PDK International recognizes that strong school leadership has a connection to a school’s overall performance, in being able to meet the needs of students. But we did think it might be interesting to see what teachers thought was most important across all the aspects required for the job of a modern school principal!

The October 2024 RapidResponse Survey Questions

Likert questions (strongly agree, agree, neither agree or disagree, disagree, and strongly disagree):

1. I felt having a strong principal was very important for me to be able to do my best for students.
2. A strong principal is visible to staff nearly every day at school.
3. A strong principal should shepherd less experienced teachers with guidance and mentorship as they develop their skillset.
4. A strong principal should participate in on-going professional development activities.
5. A strong principal should seek feedback from teacehrs, students, and parents about their role and their ability to improve.
6. A strong principal is responsible for establishing the climate in their school, reflecting on how it feels to work in that environment.
7. A strong principal should have expert knowledge about pedagogy, including how to address the needs of struggling students.
8. A strong principal should attempt to develop positive relationships with all students, instead of only dealing with those students who present discipline issues.
9. A strong principal should be available to teachers beyond the school day, by text or by phone.
10. A strong principal should be a champion for their community and develop relationships beyond their school walls.

Ranking question: rank the importance of the following qualities of a principal for you, as a teacher:

• empathy,
• listening skills,
• strategic thinker,
• problem solver,
• optimism,
• strong communicator,
• strong instructional leader, expert
• emphasis on student behavior & safety

October 2024 Results

Headline Results

When we asked teachers to think about statements about the principalship that they agreed with, we saw the strongest agreement (83%) with a strong principal should attempt to develop positive relationships with all students, instead of only dealing with those students who present discipline issues.

The next statement with the strongest agreement was around a strong principal is responsible for establishing the climate in their school, reflection on how it feels to work in that environment with 82% (72% in strongest agreement, and 9% in agreement).

And finally, the third statement with strongest agreement was a strong principal is visible to staff nearly every day at school at 81%, (broken down by 72% in strongest agreement, and 9% in agreement).

Our takeaway is that these three issues have the strongest support among teachers as they view the principalship, however other issues, when “agreements” are aggregated, aren’t far behind (see table 2, below):

• Principals should be focused on developing relationships with all students,
• Principals are responsible for what it feels like to work in their school, and
• Principals should be present daily within their school (visible).

We also asked a ranking question, about the importance teachers place on several different qualities a principal can have. The one skill most often cited as the #1 skill for principals? Strong communicator with 40 votes.

We took ranking question and weighted the results to come up with all of the qualities ranked in order of those most resonanting with teachers. The rankings below, are clear: teachers want principals to be good communicators (which includes listening!).

Table 1. Weighted ranking of principal qualities of import to teachers (October 2024, n=97)

Breakdown

For the Likert-style questions, this is the breakdown, organized by strength in agreement.

Table 2. Principal strengths, ranked (October 2024, n=97). Percentages were rounded up and down in the chart below. A lower standard deviation indicates that responses among teachers were similar in their agreement.

We want to thank all of the teachers who weighed in with their opinion and insight into the importance of the principalship as we celebrate National Principal Month! Our respondents represent PDK members and Educators Rising teacher leaders from across the United States. We want to recognize that this was not a statistically-normed survey.

Thank you to all our principals who we can see need to possess an amazing set of skills to lead our schools. Your calling has impact and your leadership is important to teachers!

September 2024: Topics on the 2024 PDK Poll

This year, we were proud to release yet another PDK Poll, capturing America’s attitudes on public education. For 56 years, our organization has brought to light issues of import to Americans. This year’s 2024 Poll echoed the prioritzation in earlier polls ahead of national elections, with questions designed to understand the American public’s thoughts on education priorities, about federal spending on public education, and on the use of artificial intelligence in the schools (AI). In September, we issued an informal survey to teachers to gain insight into how they feel about some of the same issues covered in our national poll.

We want to preface the results of our September RapidResponse survey by acknowledging that it was not a scientific survey nor was it administered by our polling partner. Nevertheless, we thought differences among attitudes with teachers and the American public at-large could be interesting. We want to thank everyone who took the time to respond to our first RapidResponse survey this year. We plan to do more quick-response polling in the coming months specifically to amply the student voices in our Educators Rising program about issues of import to public education.

The September 2024 RapidResponse Survey Questions

1. Are you currently employed in a school or school district? (Public vs. Private vs. Higher Ed vs. No)
2. Considering the upcoming presidental election, which kind of candidate for politial office are you most likely to support? One who supports increased funding, decreased funding, or maintaining the current level of funding?
3. Thinking ahead to the election in November, how important is the issue of public education in your vote for president?
4. Should the federal government focus MORE or LESS on the following education issues in the next administration?
   1. College afforability
   2. Expansion of Charter Schools
   3. Efforts to attract and retain good teachers
   4. Availability of public preK programs
   5. Protecting students from discrimination in schools
   6. Addressing student mental health
   7. Preparing students to enter the workforce
   8. Providing extra help to students who are struggling
5. Do you support the use of AI for teachers to prepare lesson plans?
6. Do you support the use of AI to tutor students via interactive computer applications?
7. Do you support the use of AI to have students practice taking standardized tests?
8. Do you support the use of AI for students to use in preparing their homework?
9. What is your experience or comfort level with AI tools (such as ChatGPT, Copilot, Gemini, or Claude)?
10. If you are currently working in an education environment, have you received professional development on using AI tools or expect to participate in PD in the next six months?
11. Are you aware if your school or district currently has policies in place (formal or informal) directing use of AI tools by teachers and/or students?

September 2024 Results

Updated September 19, 2024. Our survey got a reasonable response from our teacher audience, but our student audience (using email) should be noted was very small.  Teacher sample was 133 respondents; student sample was 15, 9 of whom were under the age of 18. The 2024 PDK Poll used a sample of 1,009 U.S. adults.

Election-Related Attitudes

Notes: For these three questions, the student reponses were only counted if they indicated they were 18 years or older. For the second question, Thinking ahead to the election in November, the PDK Poll provided respondents four answer categories and our RapidResponse survey offered respondents five. For teachers, the “unimportant and very unimportant” answer caterogies were combined to equal 3.8%.

Artificial Intelligence Attitudes

Notes: For this first set of questions, the RapidResponse poll utitlized a 5-category Likert-like scale (strongly support, support, neither support or not support, do not support, strongly do not support). The PDK Poll used a 4-category scale (strongly support, support; do not support, strongly do not support). We have combined the the support and do not support answers across two categories below. For the RapidResponse questions, the difference in percentages reflects the % marking “neither support or not support.” For the PDK Poll questions, the difference in percentage reflects those who did not provide an answer.

Notes: These questions were not a part of the 2024 PDK Poll.