You’ve heard of teacher turnover. It’s a problem for administrators, too.

Research from the University of Wyoming and surveys from the Wyoming Department of Education have both documented the issue, as have multiple media outlets. The discontentment mirrors a national trend that has been raising alarms about the future of education across the U.S.

Last month, lawmakers on the Joint Education Interim Committee heard about the efforts of the Department of Education, school districts and UW’s College of Education to address retention and recruitment issues with new programs to better support teachers.

But lost in the discussion about teachers is the turnover and shrinking pool of superintendents, principals and school administrators that is affecting Wyoming schools, too.

While school administrator turnover has historically fluctuated in Wyoming, school districts are seeing fewer applicants as education becomes increasingly political and school leaders face more pushback in an already difficult job. The consequences might seem insignificant, but research shows the brain drain of school leaders could have a real impact on Wyoming’s school districts.

“It is challenging to hire personnel across the board, and that includes administrators,” Brian Farmer, executive director of the Wyoming School Boards Association, told lawmakers.

Turnover is not all that uncommon for Wyoming’s superintendents. It varies from year to year. Some years up to a quarter of those leading the state’s school districts leave, while other years it might be as few as two or three, Farmer said in an interview.

That’s in part because of what the jobs require. Superintendents must work closely with school boards, so the fit between a superintendent and a community is critical, Farmer said. As school boards change with elections, the fit between a board and a superintendent can change. You can think of a superintendent almost like a sports coach. If their vision for a team doesn’t align with management or the players, they and the district are likely to move on.

Common wisdom has held that superintendents across the country typically remain on the job for three years. But a 2018 report from the Broad Center at the Yale School of Management, which trains school leaders, found that they last around six years in the largest districts. In Wyoming, the average is slightly longer. Superintendents typically stay with a school district for seven to eight years, Farmer said.

Though turnover is a constant, it has changed recently.

“What’s different is that in the pandemic and post-pandemic world, we’ve seen probably a greater rate of change among superintendents,” Farmer said.

This upcoming year Wyoming school districts will field seven new superintendents, including one interim superintendent, said Kevin Mitchell, executive director of the Wyoming Association of School Administrators.

But it’s not just superintendents.

Ryan Thomas, the superintendent of Uinta County School District No. 1, told the education panel on May 24 that for the first time in 15 years the Evanston school district in 2022 lost two principals in the same year. Both left for Utah, where pay gaps with Wyoming have narrowed. One had been with the district a decade and a half and took a demotion for a 20% raise.

“There’s been far more movement,” said Ken Griffith, executive director of the Wyoming Association of Secondary School Principals.

In a typical year, Griffith would see 10 to 15 principals out of 150 move on, but that number grew after the coronavirus pandemic. Between 30 and 35 principals are leaving this year, Griffith said.

“Some of them would have been retiring anyway. Some of them moved to central office,” Griffith said. “But some of them just left.”

At the same time, the candidate pools for both principals and superintendents are shrinking. Open positions may receive only a handful of applications. Fewer and fewer people want the jobs, Farmer said. Becoming a school leader requires investment, both on the job and often in the form of additional credentials. Increasingly, teachers or others who may want to become school administrators are shying away.

Griffith can’t blame them.

“I wouldn’t go back into the principalship were I making that decision right now based on what it was and what it is now,” he said.

School administrators are often singled out for their roles, their decisions and their pay. The job has always been difficult.

Superintendents and principals must ensure that their districts and schools meet a slew of state and federal regulations. They must oversee standardized testing, athletics, special education programs and budgets that tally in the tens of millions, if not hundreds of millions. The Wyoming Department of Education has about 100 reports it requires throughout the year that administrators must keep up with, Mitchell said.

Those are the easy parts.

Staff issues, student discipline, funding and community relationships all take time and require nuance and care. It’s school leaders who have to make difficult decisions and face angry parents and lawmakers. “The [superintendent] position itself is a lot more complex and complicated than people realize,” Mitchell said.

Yet, the jobs are getting tougher.

Behavioral issues among students have worsened following the pandemic, while teacher shortages have forced principals to step into classrooms as substitutes, Griffith said. Increasingly, principals and superintendents are coming under stiff pressure from parents, community members, school boards and lawmakers, including on social media. It’s the atmosphere around education that Farmer and others link in large part to the new retention challenges and declining interest in school leadership.

“Superintendents are responding to a more and more politically charged environment and that makes it difficult to retain tenure,” he said. “We absolutely have seen superintendents spending lots of time either focused on sort of the culture wars issues or dealing with parental rights or questions about managing the pandemic.”

Farmer said some school administrators have left after finding that their time leading schools was consumed by issues other than education.

“As administrators spend increasing amounts of time on [cultural issues] there is less time focused on teaching and learning and the real things that got them into educational administration in the first place,” he said.

Researchers have found that teacher turnover affects the academic achievement of students. The same is true of school administrators. One 2019 study from researchers at Vanderbilt University observed that principal turnover leads to increased teacher turnover and declines in student achievement.

A body of evidence also shows that effective superintendents and principals can improve student performance and the success of schools.

“When you’ve got a board and a superintendent who stay focused on the same thing and see that implementation through, it makes a difference,” Farmer said. “Those kids tend to benefit.”

Principals and superintendents play a key role in schools. They set expectations for students and teachers and build the school cultures that create positive learning environments.

Amid teacher shortage concerns, they can help to mediate the growing dissatisfaction among Wyoming educators. Studies suggest that a teacher’s well-being is linked in part to how administrators lead their schools, communicate their expectations and support teachers. Administrators who help manage student behavior, build positive relationships with educators and show teachers appreciation improve the odds that their teachers will stay in the profession, in turn impacting students.

“They’re the educational leader in the community. Everyone looks to them,” Griffith said.

So far, few solutions have emerged to slow the quickening rate of turnover and the shrinking pipeline of school leaders in Wyoming. State Superintendent of Public Instruction Megan Degenfelder’s strategic plan includes a goal to introduce principal leadership training to Wyoming’s statewide professional development, but politics and cultural issues continue to embroil schools. Current administrators and school districts have largely turned to training their own, Mitchell said.

With the stress and challenges of leading schools repelling potential administrators, school districts and the state must work toward building their own pipeline to ensure quality leadership, Farmer said.

“Building leadership matters and district leadership matters,” he said.