Richmond, Virginia—Teacher, staff, and principal appreciation week is kicking off in schools across the country, as schools and PTAs acknowledge the huge contribution of the often-underpaid and overworked professionals who serve our communities’ children. It is worth thinking critically about the policy choices we make to support principals, teachers and staff, particularly those who serve in underresourced schools, every other week of the year. 

Due to a combination of high demands, lower-than-average pay and sometimes unique geographic challenges, rural and low-income schools have had a particularly hard time recruiting and retaining skilled principals.  The principals who do agree to serve in higher needs schools face real daily challenges, and in 2020, close to half of school principals nationwide were considering leaving their positions. Those numbers were significantly higher in rural and low-income schools. 

Though significant progress was made under former President Biden’s leadership, now these successful programs have been eliminated or are on the chopping block.  The SEED and TQP grants have been eliminated, in part because grantors recruited at HBCUs and engaged in anti-bias training as part of the curriculum. Trump’s Department of Education has cut the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program and threatens to eliminate more as it hints at a sweeping reevaluation of how it treats non-profits for tax purposes. Funding cuts to Title I schools will also worsen the shortages as already underfunded schools grapple with huge budget cuts. Cuts to programs haven’t removed the problem those programs were trying to solve, of course, and without the programs, the problems will likely get significantly worse over the next few years. 

“If our schools can’t attract and retain competent leadership and committed teachers, our communities will suffer, and the first to feel it will be the most vulnerable community members: our kids,” said LaTwyla Mathias, Executive Director at Progress Virginia. “We call on local leadership to look at the evidence-based best practice programs that have helped us bring talented educators into our system, and figure out ways of restoring those funding streams until the federal government stops abnegating its responsibility to our students and their schools.”