Portland’s Principal Shuffle Could Be Affecting Student Success

Tuesday, May 26, 2015

Rebecca Randall, GoLocalPDX Contributor

The reasons have been varied—from police arrests at school to simply finding best matches—but Portland Public Schools’ pattern of principal shuffling could be affecting student success.

Gwen Sullivan, Portland Association of Teachers president, thinks that school leadership is one indicator of how well schools are doing.

Sullivan isn’t alone in connecting school success to good principal leadership. Similar to beliefs about teacher quality and student performance, federal policies from No Child Left Behind to the current Obama administration have prioritized principal leadership in turning around low-performing schools.

While there are anecdotes that suggest the importance of principal leadership, a 2013 study published in Education Next is attempting to provide more evidence that it really does. The researchers, Gregory Branch, Eric Hanushek, and Steven Rivkin, compare school performance in Texas schools with principal leadership.

They wrote, “Our results indicate that highly effective principals raise the achievement of a typical student in their schools by between two and seven months of learning in a single school year; ineffective principals lower achievement by the same amount.”

While principal leadership could be key in improving schools, the study’s authors acknowledge that there are many factors that affect achievement, including parent involvement and the affluence of the community, which make it difficult to quantify the connection.

For Sullivan, though, the issue is whether teachers and principals are on the same page. It’s when they’re not that she fears school won’t be at their best.

“This is the most amount of principal shuffle I can remember during the middle of the year,” said Sullivan.

Rigler, Glencoe, Richmond, Kelly, James John and Buckman elementary schools have all had principals shuffled in and out this year. So have Scott K-8 and Hosford Middle School.

At some schools, the situation surrounding decisions to move principals has been more public, such as at Rigler and Kelly elementary schools. Willamette Week reported the turnover at Rigler, where teachers organized a complaint to the district about principal Sara Gandarilla who then abruptly went on medical leave. It also reported the arrest of Marti Diaz, principal at Kelly, for domestic violence.

In some schools, the teachers are clearly unhappy with the leadership, according to the Teaching Empowering Leading and Learning (TELL) survey.

The TELL survey, which is provided by the New Teachers Center, is administered statewide with the support of the Oregon Department of Education, the Oregon School Boards Association, the Oregon Education Association, and the Confederation of School Administrators.

About fifty-seven percent of Portland teachers voluntarily participated in the lengthy online survey, which asked questions about a range of topics, including instructional practices, managing student conduct, school leadership, professional development and others. The survey is planned for every two years.

The first year of the survey was 2013-2014, so it can’t speak to leadership during this year, but the results quite drastically show where teachers aren’t confident in their principal’s leadership abilities.

Unfortunately, Kelly Elementary, where Diaz led from 2012 until a few months into the 2014-2015 year, did not get enough respondents to report results. Though at Rigler Elementary, where Gandarilla was not yet principal in 2013-2014, roughly half of teachers took the survey and most were not happy with principal Kristie Lindholm.

Sixty-two percent of respondents either disagreed or strongly disagreed that “the faculty and leadership had a shared vision.” A similar portion—68 percent—also disagreed or strongly disagreed that “there is an atmosphere of trust and mutual respect in this school.”

Beach Elementary, which has seen a pattern of short principal tenure in recent years, had one of the more alarming results on school leadership. Roughly 81 percent of teachers participated and had near consensus on a number of the statements.

Ninety-three percent did not think faculty and leadership have a shared vision or that there was an atmosphere of trust and mutual respect. Additionally 96 percent did not feel comfortable raising issues of concern and did not believe that school leadership supports teachers.

During the year of the survey, Rebecca Torres-Wilhelm worked as principal of Beach. Torres-Wilhelm’s leadership inspired a parent petition to have her ousted. In 2014-2015, Mary Patterson replaced her as principal, and this fall Cate Boyce will step into the role.

According to Beach’s Oregon Report Card for 2013-2014, the school’s performance falls slightly below the average Oregon school. Sixty-eight percent met or exceeded science, 62.5 percent met or exceeded reading, and 57.2 percent met benchmarks in math. While its Hispanic/Latino students are doing better than the Oregon average, its African-American students are behind by about 15 percentage points, and multi-racial and Native American students are doing even worse.

Sullivan noted that one of the best results for school leadership was Cleveland High School. At Cleveland, 64 percent of teachers responded, three-quarters of which agreed that faculty and school leadership shared the same vision. Over 80 percent also felt respected and felt comfortable sharing concerns with leadership.

At Cleveland, students surpassed the state average on the Oregon Report Card in the same year. In reading, only about seven percent did not pass standards. In math, 81 percent met or exceeded standards; in writing 76 percent; in science about 68 percent. It also has higher graduation rates for students of color, economically disadvantaged students, students with disabilities and English language learners than the rest of the state.

Principal leadership is concerning to Sullivan, who wants to see more teacher involvement in selecting principals. “Teachers want a role in principal selection,” she said saying that having a transparent process will lead to a shared vision, which leads to successful schools.

The district hasn’t been very inclusive in its approach to addressing what has been a persistent problem, she said. In 2011, Senate Bill 290 attempted to strengthen educator evaluations, which led to Portland Public Schools working with the teacher’s union on developing framework for teacher’s evaluations. It is also supposed to be working with the union on principal evaluations, said Sullivan, yet she has no idea where they are on that.

“Every school has its own sort of vision and climate and you want someone who supports that,” she said.

According to Branch, Hanushek and Rivkin’s study, a lack of good performance measures for principals is especially concerning for schools serving disadvantaged students. “This is troubling, as the demands of leading such schools, including the need to attract and retain high-quality teachers despite less desirable working conditions, may amplify the importance of having an effective leader,” they wrote.

Related Slideshow: Top 100 Oregon High Schools

GoLocalPDX has ranked high schools across the state based on a method developed at Babson College, Mass. See below for the top 100 schools in the Beaver State.

Portland’s Principal Shuffle Could Be Affecting Student Success

Related Slideshow: Top 100 Oregon High Schools

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