Education Week - September 22, 2021 - 6

Principals Bear the Brunt of Parental Anger,
Staff Fatigue as COVID Drags On
By Andrew Ujifusa
Three men angry about COVID19
rules seek to " arrest " a principal
at her Tucson, Ariz., school using zip
ties. As parents shout encouragement,
students in Manchester, Mich., brush
aside a school employee and enter a
high school without masks in defiance
of a local mandate. A judge issues
an injunction to prevent protests
and rallies that " disrupt educational
services " following unrest at a Vancouver,
Wash., school over a mask
requirement.
The stress caused by the pandemic
in a third consecutive school year has
affected educators up and down the
organizational chart. But principals
are often bearing the brunt of conflicts
over evolving and controversial
decisions dealing with masks, quarantines,
vaccines, and other highly
charged issues.
From outside their school walls,
they're an easy target of discontent
that can disrupt their work. Inside,
they face an overwhelming host of
concerns covering everything from
pandemic-driven teacher absences
and jumbled schedules, to the impact
of quarantines on student well-being
and learning.
For many principals, the hope that
this year would be dramatically less
challenging is gone or rapidly fading.
Aaron Eyler, the principal of Matawan
Regional High School, in Aberdeen,
N.J., where an indoor universal
masking rule and quarantine policies
are in place, must help students who
spent all of last year in remote learning
adjust to the new mitigation measures.
Simultaneously, students and
staff who were in buildings last year
have a different but necessary adjustment
period of their own.
Such varied considerations can
weigh heavily on school leaders.
" There are parents and guardians
who are very frustrated when they
find out about quarantine, when they
find out about masking, " Eyler said.
" But it's an endless conversation,
and something that is not going to
be solved right now. It's probably not
going to be solved in the next year. "
Eyler said he's never felt physically
in danger during encounters with
parents. But the pandemic, and the
associated confusing and frequently
changing guidelines, have increased
the frequency of conversations with
frustrated parents.
Superintendents can support
COVID-19 protocols, and school
boards can adopt policies like universal
masking or implement those
mandated by the state or recommended
by local health authorities.
But the pandemic has emphasized
a fundamental truth in schools that
can be easily overlooked: Principals
are the educators who must implement
policies adopted by their district-level
superiors.
Principal Andrea Harper hugs a student as she and Superintendent Kent P. Scribner greet students on the first day
of school at T.A. Sims Elementary School in Fort Worth, Texas. The Fort Worth district's mandate for universal
masking to combat COVID-19 is the subject of a legal battle with the state.
" I know there's a lot of talk about
how everyone in school is a leader,
and leadership is distributed. It's
true in some ways. But ultimately,
if you're looking at the school and
you have a complaint, you're thinking
about the principal, " said Paul
Manna, a College of William and
Mary professor who studies education
policy and leadership.
Eyler said facing community concerns
or even anger is nothing new.
He views it as part of his job. He also
sympathizes with frustrated parents;
his own children had to go into quarantine
several times last year, and his
7th grader missed weeks of in-person
schooling. And he's unsure whether
his message is resonating broadly
among parents: " I don't know that
they are buying it from me, to be honest
with you. "
Nevertheless, if parents must vent,
Eyler would prefer to be the target.
" I would rather them yell at me than
yell at my administrative team, yell at
the teachers, yell at the nurse, yell at
the main office people. I would rather
them to be angry and yell at me because,
to be realistic about it, if they're
yelling at me that means that my team
is able to do their job. "
Schools are in the center of
controversy
Schools, of course, have been
caught up in or at the center of national
political disputes throughout
American history. And some principals
are dealing with divisions separate
from the pandemic, such as the
ongoing furor about how teachers
should address racism in society.
But policies like mask mandates-
particularly in states where districts
6 | EDUCATION WEEK | September 22, 2021 | www.edweek.org
have opted to implement them or are
mandating them in defiance of state
prohibitions-are very local, very
tangible, and visible. And they don't
always come directly from distant federal
and state authorities.
That's one of the reasons that the
response to policies like universal
masking may be much more personal,
said Lance Fusarelli, an educational
leadership and policy professor at NC
State College of Education.
" I am sure that there were some
principals that probably got some flak
from parents about the common core
and stuff like that, " Fusarelli said. " But
they weren't showing up with zip ties. "
Annual turnover among principals
is about 18 percent, per federal statistics.
Yet whether the pandemic has
and will trigger mass resignations remains
unclear. A National Association
of Secondary School Principals survey
last year found 45 percent of principals
said COVID-19 spurred them to consider
leaving their jobs earlier than they
had planned. Yet a RAND Corporation
survey of superintendents this summer
reported that the pandemic hasn't accelerated
principal departures.
That doesn't mean principals aren't
still feeling the pressure.
" School is hard business anyway, because
you are dealing with people, and
you are dealing with relationships, "
said Jason Leahy, the executive director
of the Illinois Principals Association.
" As we know as human beings, relationships
can be messy at times. But
in this environment, when tensions are
high and people are not well, and they
are hurting because we want to get
back to a sense of normalcy that we
had prior to the pandemic and really
want to make that happen no matter
what-this whole confluence of things
that's happening right now drives up
stress and tensions. "
The Carmi-White County School
District in rural Illinois was one of the
few districts in that state to open all
year for in-person schooling last year.
Amy Dixon, who leads two school
sites in the district, Lincoln and Jefferson
Attendance Centers, said there
was general acceptance of COVID "
I
would rather
them yell at me
than yell at my
administrative
team, yell at the
teachers, yell at the
nurse, yell at the
main office people.
AARON EYLER
New Jersey principal
19 mitigation measures like indoor
masking in the 2020-21 school year.
But patience with such policies
eventually wore thin, she said, and
foreshadowed the anger at the mask
mandate from Gov. J.B. Pritzker, a
Democrat, for the 2021-22 school
year. Some parents, she said, have
sent their children to school without
masks and have filmed the reaction of
the principal.
Most parents, Dixon said, aren't
creating such issues. But she's worried
about the tangible and negative impact
of the tense environment on students,
as well as on new principals. And like
many, she's concerned about the fatigue
and exhaustion among staff.
" We definitely have some parents
who are just really against the governor
or the governor's mandate or
whether or not the governor has the
right to mandate and so forth. I just
hate that our students are getting
dragged into that, " Dixon said. " I wish
that the frustrations would be aired at
our state capitol, through our representatives
and legislators. "
Tension is mixed with confusion
Raul Gaston, the principal of Jefferson
Middle School in Villa Park,
Ill., said he and his staff watch closely
for any possible conflicts, especially
during student pick-up and drop-off
times. He said his interactions with
parents about the state's mask mandate
have been minimal, citing one
phone call with a concerned parent
that was relatively civil.
Yet staff have shared their worries
with him about postings on social
media that they feared could make
their way to the campus, and he's listened,
encouraged them to continue
reaching out to him about anxieties,
and reported their concerns to the
district.
" There's conflicting information
out there that's not necessarily backed
by CDC and by reputable places, "
Gaston said. " They are just kind of
throwing that stuff out there and believe
that it's true. So we're competing
against that as well. "
The shifting nature of the pandemic
and responses to it add to the
atmosphere of tension principals face
within and outside their schools.
Chase Christensen, the principal of
Torrington High School in Torrington,
Wyo., said the hope in his community
that this school year would represent
a return to familiar routines painfully
disintegrated after just a few days.
As of early September, roughly 10
percent of students were in quarantine,
and the school board adopted a mask
mandate after starting the year without
one. Christensen said he already
canceled a football game, and the volleyball
team had to enter quarantine,
things that never happened last year
and have added to the emotional deflation
and whiplash at his school.
That kind of situation underscores
how scheduling things and keeping
them on the schedule, however difficult
that is to implement, can be
very valuable to principals. But the
current environment is one in which
COVID-19 exposure can empty
classrooms in a flash and where
safety protocols are in constant flux,
said Meredith Honig, a professor at
the University of Washington's college
of education.
" Now they're dealing with situYffy
Yossifor/Star-Telegram via AP

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Education Week - September 22, 2021

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