When still a teacher, I considered my building principal a consequence vending machine. When all else failed, press H5 for an in-school suspension. Having been on both sides now, I realize that the role of the administrator in maintaining school order is far more consequential. They can create the conditions where even a first-year teacher can run a functional class room or where even the veterans have quit trying.
Unfortunately, principal preparation in America is wanting, and the research into effective leadership finds that their effects are consequential but diffuse. Trying to define effective school leadership is akin to describing what makes Grandma’s house so welcoming. Where do you even begin?
I’ve developed more sympathy for building principals and assistant principals who want to maintain order but are unsure how. Benjamin Franklin said that “experience keeps a dear school, yet fools will learn from no other.” School leaders—wise or foolish—have few opportunities for development aside from experience.
With that in mind, I cannot profess that the following recommendations ground themselves in the latest randomized controlled trial. Rather, they’re a collection of simple insights that I gathered from wise mentors, my own failures, and the feedback of teachers.
Never send a student back without a consequence
Put yourself in a teacher’s shoes. Little Johnny has been a thorn in his teacher's side since September. She has moved his seat, administered her own recess or lunch detentions, stayed late to call his parents, held heart-to-hearts with the boy, and put in countless more hours that you don’t see. Finally, one day, he just refuses to sit in his chair. It is something small, something simple, but for that teacher to have any command in her classroom, students need to comply with her requests. If she cannot expect compliance in the small things, why should a student follow directions for the big things?
She sends little Johnny to the office. What does it communicate if that student returns within minutes after only a conversation and a pat on the back? That kid know they can get away with anything. There will be zero expectation that he respects his teacher.
Always, always provide a consequence, no matter how small. It does not have to be a ten-day suspension. It can be a phone call home that you make to signal the severity to the parents (and support for the teacher.) It could be half a recess in your office. It could be a single demerit on your schoolwide incentive system. But it has to be something.
You may well have some ineffective teachers in your building. Their slipshod classroom management fosters higher levels of misbehavior. Even in these cases, you must never undercut the teacher’s authority. Have a difficult conversation with that teacher or set them on an improvement plan. But in those moments, never undermine them. If you do, you will make that environment worse in the immediate and so overwhelm them that they cannot improve going forward.
Communicate with teachers
While a teacher, I rarely received communication about what transpired after I wrote an office referral. Was there a classroom dynamic that caused this misbehavior? Did the kid get a consequence? Did they meet with the assistant or head principal?
Where possible, leadership should walk the student back to the classroom personally. At once, this simple act establishes your authority in the building, backs up the teacher’s authority, and communicates the seriousness to other students. It also provides you a brief moment to discourse with the classroom teacher. Explain to them what you did and why you did it. They may provide valuable insight or this moment may allow the catharsis they need to return to teaching with full focus.
If that is not possible, send a quick email. It does not have to be long: what did you learn, what did you do, and why.
Empower teachers to be the authorities
This recommendation may prove the most controversial in practice, but each classroom’s culture is a teacher’s responsibility. You can set the conditions to make that easier or harder, but much of it is up to them.
In every school where I have worked, I’ve witnessed a school leader chastise an entire classroom for their failure to respect a teacher, usually but not always one new to the profession. Like scratching an itchy rash, this well-meaning impulse to intervene can undermine a teacher.
When the admin steps in, what does that communicate implicitly? It signals that this teacher cannot control their classroom, so doesn’t deserve as much respect. I have never seen it work.
Instead, you, as the administrator, have to help establish the teacher as the authority in the classroom. One of the most effective ways to accomplish this (and here’s the controversy) is to compel teachers to administer a consequence. I can sense the hackles of my teacher-readers rising, so let me explain.
Very often, students served their consequences with me: a lunch, recess, or after- school detention in my room; a phone call that I made home; a parent conference that I requested; an apology letter or reflection written under my watch. But when the administrator always owns the consequences, student conclude that they really only have to obey when administration gets involved.
Instead, it is better to have students serve detention with the teacher. You can provide the reflection activity, or leave it up to the teacher if they prefer it. In the background, there must also be the threat that, if this student continues to give the teacher trouble, then there will be more severe consequences with administration.
In the moment, this asks more of the teacher, but it better allows the teacher to command the classroom, meaning fewer misbehaviors in the long run. Moreover, as teachers deliver consequences, the whole building can stay on top of more student behaviors. A single principal can administer a handful of consequences in a day. A building’s entire personnel? Hundreds. This shared responsibility enables the school to truly sweat the small stuff and maintain the highest of behavioral expectations.
Establish clear routines and procedures
An instructive meta-analysis notes that classroom structure is one of the most consequential classroom factors for academic achievement. Such structure includes “communicating and maintaining clear expectations, framing students’ activity with explicit directions, guidance, routines, or schedules, creating an organized space and materials, providing clear, organized activities, monitoring progress,” as well as “proactively communicating desirable behavior” with “relevant ongoing guidance.”
Administration can provide professional development that ties directly to the “clear, organized” activities in their curriculum. They can set, communicate, and maintain “clear expectations” regarding student behavior. They can establish efficient routines to diminish downtime, confusion, and thereby conflict. These range from morning drop-off to cafeteria line flows.
If every routine, procedure, and expectation is left up to every single teacher, this creates an unhealthy environment in your school. One teacher is the respected authoritative voice. Another is a cruel, petty authoritarian. Yet another is permissive, spreading the message, explicitly or not, that everyone else is just too serious.
There is absolutely room for teacher individuality, but every teacher cannot have their own style. If structure, clear behavioral expectations, and incentive systems create the environments for learning, teachers should be expected to follow them.
Don’t cave to pressure
This one is hard: do not cave to parental pressure. Parents are not in charge of your institution. Ultimately, the school board is. If you have a rule that there are no late assignments, make no exceptions (save for illness, death, and other such situations). If you have a behavior code that compels suspensions for a specific behavior, follow through.
If a parent is badgering a teacher, step in. Send a polite but firm email that says “Mr. Smith is an excellent staff member in whom I place my trust and is faithfully following the duties expected of him set forth by the staff manual and parent handbook. If you have any further concerns, please direct them to me.”
Obviously, staff members can be in the wrong. Do not paper over impropriety on the part of your staff. But apologize and make exceptions to parents from a place of conviction, not compulsion.
Be present
If nothing else, just be present. I know schools where students do not know the principal’s name. Teachers have told me that their building leader just “hides in the office.” Make a note to walk the halls every morning and afternoon. If you can combine this with other errands, all the better.
You will notice problems that need solving before they’re major, correct behavior and maintain norms (not just deputize teachers into it), catch discipline issue while they’re still minor, and establish your presence in the building. Such presence may not manifest in anything immediately tangible, but it will establish, over time, the knowledge that you are in command, that your teachers will be supported, and that everyone in the building expects student excellence.
Walking the halls, strolling through the cafeteria, taking the occasional recess duty, greeting students at the door in the morning—these alone are impactful. If possible, regular classroom pop-ins are a valuable addition to that list. Unfortunately, many unions prohibit regular, unannounced classroom walk-throughs.
But if you can, get into every teacher’s room every other week, if only for a few minutes at a time. Each visit needn’t include a condescending feedback sandwich—compliment, critique, compliment. If the teacher is doing an excellent job, simply tell them so, noting a few discrete things that stood out. That encouragement will do wonders. If you notice something that they could be doing better, point that out, too.
Again, more than anything else, regular classroom visits establish your presence in the building. If an issue arises with a parent, you can assure them that you were in their child’s classroom just yesterday. You will notice problems. You will notice uniform infractions. You will get ideas for professional development that speaks to your staff’s actual needs. Students will learn that you can be expected anywhere, so they should always be on their best behavior.
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Most of these recommendations are pretty simple—walk around, give consequences, stand your ground—but they are difficult to carry out. No one enjoys reprimanding a staff member or sending home a parent dissatisfied. But being a school leader means creating the conditions where teachers can succeed, which often means carrying out difficult duties. This is what is expected of us. We should expect nothing less of ourselves.
