Principal Pipeline Crisis

Ensuring Effective and Sustained Principals for Every Illinois Community

Effective leadership, especially principal leadership, is vital to the success of every school. With adequate support, resources and time, principals can do extraordinary work to benefit their students, teachers, and communities. Unfortunately, principals today find themselves under-invested, overly stressed, and lacking the time to be effective. Thus, a high number of principals are choosing to leave the profession, and many who could be outstanding school leaders disregard the principalship as a viable career pathway.

Therefore, the Illinois Principals Association (IPA) has drafted this report, Effective and Sustained Principals for Every Illinois Community, to serve as a reminder of the critical role principals play in creating effective schools. Further, the report details the serious problem schools face with principal attrition and how attrition is exacerbated in Illinois with a dwindling pipeline. Lastly, recommendations are provided for consideration by policymakers, school districts, the IPA, and other stakeholders, to help slow attrition and bolster the principal pipeline.

Principal Stressors

Principal Prep Completers