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The Principal Effect: The Role of School Leaders in Thriving Schools
Comments Off on The Principal Effect: The Role of School Leaders in Thriving SchoolsSummary
Principals play a key role in shaping their school environment. Principals’ wellbeing directly enhances the wellbeing of staff, the academic and social performance of students, and the overall success of a school. A focus on supporting principal wellbeing, through promising practices such as peer support networks and leadership development can significantly impact staff and student wellbeing.
As an elementary school principal, one of the most rewarding aspects of my job is personally greeting the students first thing in the morning, like a Walmart greeter – and then saying goodbye to them again at the end of each day. I always thought that teaching Grade 1 was the best job because the children grew so much from the beginning to the end of the school year. Now, as a principal, I get to see the impact that teachers and the broader school environment are having on many kids. Supporting staff to positively impact students is the essence of being a principal. The job may be demanding and tiring, but the rewards are significant.
The School Environment
Safe, welcoming and inclusive school environments are a priority for every school jurisdiction in Canada, and they support the wellbeing and learning of students. In addition to being places of learning, schools also serve as workplaces for the dedicated individuals who make our education system possible. By prioritizing safety, care, and inclusivity, we benefit our students and enhance our staff’s overall wellbeing and effectiveness.
The Critical Role of an Effective Principal
While everyone in the school community influences the school culture, the principal has a significant influence as both a managerial and instructional leader. It is widely acknowledged in the management literature that leaders play a crucial role in shaping organizational culture. Edgar Shein, in his book Organizational Culture and Leadership, emphasized the importance of leaders in managing culture. Leadership quality also influences virtually every measure of occupational health.1 Research in K-12 education confirms that as school leaders, principals play a key role in shaping the school climate, fostering student learning, and enhancing student wellbeing and staff retention.2
The principal’s role extends beyond management to encompass instructional leadership. Effective instructional leadership involves prioritizing their professional growth. By continuously improving their knowledge and skills, the principal can better guide and mentor the educators and support staff within the school, enabling them to foster a more dynamic and effective learning environment.
The Importance of Principal Wellbeing
Principal wellbeing has a strong correlation with school wellbeing. Chances are, if the principal is well, they are making choices that create a positive environment for their staff, students, and community.
The wellbeing of principals is crucial not only for the staff and students but also for the academic and social performance of students and the overall success of the school.3 Positive wellbeing is associated with constructive leadership, while negative wellbeing is associated with a destructive leadership style.4
“If good leadership is at the heart of every good school, then a leader who is both mentally and physically unwell could have a potentially disastrous impact on the wellbeing of a school and those within it” 5
When principals experience declines in mental health, their effectiveness in influencing student engagement, school functioning, and school-wide wellbeing decreases.6 Research shows that principal stress can contribute to low teacher performance and higher rates of principal turnover, both of which significantly impact student success.7
Given the critical role principals play in shaping their school environments, fostering principal wellbeing is not a luxury; it is essential.
Factors Affecting Principal Wellbeing
Many school, district, and community factors can impact principal wellbeing. Most research has focused on the factors that negatively influence principal wellbeing. Changes in the education landscape have placed a heavy burden on principals. Common challenges include workload intensification, long hours, feelings of isolation, staffing shortages, and safety concerns.8 The principal role involves significant administrative and managerial responsibilities with few learning opportunities to develop capacity.
Building on Hertzberg’s two-factor theory, Shirley et al. (2020) point out that “increasing wellbeing and removing ill-being are two different things.” 9 While critical, attending to factors such as workload can remove ill-being but will only go so far to support wellbeing.
The factors that improve wellbeing are often found in the work itself: collaboration, support from colleagues and supervisors, relationships based on trust and respect, autonomy in decision-making, and opportunities to complete their work in a way that offers a sense of meaning and accomplishment.10
Promising Practices
Principals play a crucial role in shaping their school environments and do so most effectively when they are well. Several promising strategies have emerged to support principals’ wellbeing and professional efficacy, led both by principals themselves and those working alongside and supporting them.
Promising practices for principals
- Professional learning to improve wellbeing – Wellbeing-focused professional learning, particularly professional development that is actively chosen by the principals themselves, can provide principals with skills and tools to help them enhance their own wellbeing and the school environment. On-going, cohort-based, or coaching-based work is much more likely to be effective than one-off professional learning opportunities.
- Leadership development opportunities – Principals need opportunities to identify their own leadership approaches and enhance their leadership skills through various professional learning methods. Leadership development is most effective when principals can select the approach that suits their needs and aligns with their leadership style.
- Supporting peer learning networks– When a school community expresses their learning needs and develops professional development opportunities around them, learning becomes more effective and meaningful. By working together on the same issue, we can learn from each other without expecting to be experts in every area. This collaborative approach supports a principal’s instructional leadership and informed decision-making.
- The Pruning Principle – Before adding anything new, it’s important to remove something first, as suggested by Simon Breakspear’s ‘pruning principle.’ Attempting to take on more and more can significantly diminish one’s ability to be effective while prioritizing tasks and responsibilities allows for focused and impactful efforts.
Promising practices to support leadership in schools
- Peer support networks – Principals often feel isolated due to the many tasks they face, but connecting with peers outside of the school can provide valuable support. Peer support, such as mentoring, professional learning communities, and networking, can be particularly effective when principals identify a specific learning need.
- Adequate staffing allocation: Adequate staffing is crucial to avoid stretching staff thin. The need for principals to fill in for teachers or perform caretaker duties intensifies their already high workload. When staff members focus on their assigned tasks, the workload is balanced, and all staff can perform their responsibilities effectively.
- Culture of support and recognition: Acknowledging the positive impact of their work is an effective method for leaders to reconnect with the meaning, purpose, and passion behind their efforts. It is crucial for administrators to feel valued and recognized for their contributions. Recognition plays a significant role in fostering a sense of effectiveness for all staff – including principals.
- Psychological health and safety across the district: Creating a supportive psychological health and safety environment benefits all employees, particularly principals, who regularly interact with various employee groups. Extensive research underscores the positive impact of psychological health and safety on team effectiveness. Truly listening to the current reality of staff, whether through interviews or a survey such as Guarding Minds, can provide valuable and often surprising insights and help support positive changes in psychological health and safety.
- Allow new principals time to adjust: As new principals enter the profession, it is important to temper our expectations. New principals need time to acclimate to the school’s culture and work toward success without expecting immediate change.
- Build community collaborations: Collaborating with parents and the community, building trust, and nurturing a collective love for students is vital for success in the school environment. By working together, schools can create a supportive community that benefits all students and helps move the community forward. A child is raised in a community – that’s what schools could be if we all work together.
I believe that being a principal is a beautiful role: as principals, we witness amazing learning happening, build relationships with students, and play an integral part in creating a ‘second home’ for students. We work with dedicated teachers, educational assistants, and other school community members to face challenging stories and witness remarkable learning experiences. When principals flourish, we see healthy, thriving staff, students, and schools: what more could we want for the future of education?
Photo: Getty Images Signature
If you have a story to share about how your school or school district is fostering wellbeing, please contact Kathleen at KLANE@EDCAN.CA.
References
- Kelloway, E. K., & Barling, J. (2010). Leadership development as an intervention in occupational health psychology. Work & Stress, 24(3), 260–279. https://doi.org/10.1080/02678373.2010.518441
- Liebowitz, D. D., & Porter, L. (2019). The Effect of Principal Behaviors on Student, Teacher, and School Outcomes: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of the Empirical Literature. Review of Educational Research, 89(5), 785-827. https://doi.org/10.3102/0034654319866133
- Northern Territory Government (n.d.) Principal Wellbeing Framework
- Parent-Lamarche, A., & Biron, C. (2022). When bosses are burned out: Psychosocial safety climate and its effect on managerial quality. International Journal of Stress Management, 29(3), 219–228. https://doi.org/10.1037/str0000252
- Phillips, S., and D. Sen. 2011. “Stress in Head Teachers.” In Handbook in Stress of the Occupations, by J. Langan-Fox and C.L. Cooper, 177-201. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.
- Maxwell, A., & Riley, P. (2017). Emotional demands, emotional labour and occupational outcomes in school principals: Modelling the relationships. Educational Management Administration & Leadership, 45(3), 484-502. https://doi.org/10.1177/1741143215607878
- Bartanen, B., Grissom, J. A., & Rogers, L. K. (2019). The Impacts of Principal Turnover. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 41(3), 350-374. https://doi.org/10.3102/0162373719855044
- Wang, F. (2022) Psychological Safety of School Administrators: Invisible Barriers to Speaking Out. https://edst-educ.sites.olt.ubc.ca/files/2022/10/Psychological-Safety-of-School-Administrators-v7-Final.pdf
- Shirley, D. Hargreaves, A. & Washington-Wangia, S. (2020). The sustainability and unsustainability of teachers’ and leaders’ wellbeing. Teaching and Teacher Education 9. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2019.102987
- Beausaert, S., Froehlich, D. E., Riley, P., & Gallant, A. (2023). What about school principals’ well-being? The role of social capital. Educational Management Administration & Leadership, 51(2), 405-421. https://doi.org/10.1177/1741143221991853
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Pandemic and Language Resilience in a Francophone Minority Context
Comments Off on Pandemic and Language Resilience in a Francophone Minority ContextFrom an ecological perspective inspired by Bronfenbrenner’s theory of human development, resilience can be defined as a process initiated by systems when they find themselves in the face of adversity (Ungar, 2018). This article examines the resilience of students during the COVID-19 pandemic, with a focus on language resilience in a francophone minority context.
According to Ungar’s model (2018), each human being is a system in and of itself, while also being a constituent of other systems. A student is therefore a system interacting with others – their school, their community(ies), family, etc. It is by interacting with these systems that students construct themselves, build their sense of the world and participate in (re)producing other systems.
Resilience is a process that aims to return the individual system1 to wellness or well-being. The COVID-19 pandemic has placed entire nations in a context of health adversity. We have seen how they have been able to mobilize various internal resources (financial means, knowledge, attitudes, capacities) and external resources (vaccines, knowledge, allies) within a network of international systems.
In the midst of this upheaval, families, parents, children, students, teachers and school administrators mobilized internal and external resources in a process of resilience that began with school closures and the creation of an “ad hoc” virtual school space. We have therefore been able to confirm the extent to which the school is not only a place of learning but also, in terms of supervising children, a concomitant system of family and social systems. Moreover, the role of schools in reducing social inequalities has been confirmed when family systems have taken on more responsibility for the schooling of children. On the one hand, for example, we saw the lower availability of Internet and computer equipment in low-income households or in those located far from the country’s urban centres. On the other hand, families with the necessary internal resources created “school cells” and hired a qualified teacher to ensure their children’s continued schooling, while the school system struggled to meet its teacher staffing needs and other children were doing minimal hours of virtual schooling, with or without adult supervision or support at home. This is reminiscent of the creation of playgroups by some parents to ensure the availability of a French-language space for their preschoolers in an Anglo-dominated setting, as well as the trend noted in research on school choice: only some families actively choose their children’s school. Thus, the mobilization of internal and external resources by a system, in this case a family system, depends largely on the availability, accessibility and relevance of such resources.
In a francophone minority context, it is also important to take into account accessibility to the French language during the pandemic and afterwards. We already know that in the most Anglo-dominated francophone and Acadian communities, the school is the only public space where the French language enjoys a higher official status than English, although the latter enjoys a very high social status in student interactions. This is the case, for example, in Halifax (Liboy and Patouma, 2021), Toronto (Heller, 1994; Heller, 2006) and Ontario more generally (Gérin-Lajoie, 2004), Manitoba (Cormier, 2020) and Vancouver (Levasseur, 2020). The introduction of the Civic Community School concept developed by FNCSF (Fédération nationale des conseils scolaires francophones) in 2011 and the identification of the sociolinguistic role of the education system as a major issue by AEFO (Association des enseignantes et enseignants franco-ontariens) in 2022 confirmed the centrality of the school for community language resilience in an Anglo-dominated context. Within the school, students find spaces for social interaction that are conducive to contextualized language production and reproduction. The closure of schools and community centres therefore placed young people in a context of language adversity.
The pandemic has had a significant impact on the mental health of adolescents (Vaillancourt et al., 2021), particularly because of the social isolation that has significantly reduced peer contact. Even when health measures have been relaxed to allow social distancing, young people in a minority setting may have encountered difficulties in getting together with their francophone friends if these friends were scattered over an area beyond the limits of their neighbourhood. Indeed, although some historical francophone or Acadian communities occupy a well-defined geographic space (the Brayon population of the City of Edmundston, the Acadian population of Pubnico or the Franco-Ontarian population of Hearst, for example), their lives are for the most part intertwined in a municipality with the lives of an English-speaking majority, thus diminishing the opportunities to communicate in French. Under such conditions, a decision becomes necessary with respect to mobilizing internal and external resources that can support language resilience in French.
Data was collected in various provinces: in Ontario and Prince Edward Island in conjunction with communications sent to various groups in the school system; in New Brunswick in connection with the research component of the Canadian Playful Schools Network; and in Nova Scotia as part of a Master’s thesis. The data shows that the closure of schools during the COVID-19 pandemic had a significant effect on the availability and accessibility of external and internal resources relevant to the language resilience of some young French speakers. In our conversations with teachers and parents in Ontario and Prince Edward Island, we heard that some children’s ability and motivation to speak French decreased during the pandemic. Teachers in some elementary school settings noted that a greater number of students who did not attend daycare because of the pandemic entered school with little or no knowledge of the French language. Teachers at one school were interviewed at the annual ACELF conference and estimated that 70 percent of students did not speak French when they arrived at school in September 2022.
Secondary school students had the habit of switching from English to French when in the vicinity of a teacher in the school hallways; after two years of interrupted copresence, however, this automatic reflex seems to have generally disappeared when students returned to the classroom. Teachers have reported that some students simply refuse to speak French in the classroom, even with staff. A Master’s study of three secondary school students in Nova Scotia informs us about the factors that may have contributed to such changes and describes how in-person school acts as a concurrent system supporting students’ language resilience process (Sutherland, 2022).
Three secondary school seniors from schools across Nova Scotia participated in individual online narrative conversations during the second year of the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite distinct sociolinguistic profiles, each one testified to the importance of school for their language resilience (Sutherland, 2022). The in-school resources which they mobilized were (1) access to academic French in French courses, (2) legitimization of the local variety of French (Acadjonne) by certain staff members and (3) extracurricular activities. The French language school thus provides these students with three spaces in which various language resources and norms of communication in French can circulate: interaction in academic French, in Acadjonne and in the language of young people. Although Acadjonne was available to two of these students at home, with one of them speaking French closer to the academic standard with her parents, the pandemic greatly reduced their daily access to academic French and interactions with their peers in French.
When their schools were closed, students in French-language schools had access to a reduced number of classes. French classes were maintained, but accessibility to academic French was reduced as the trend shifted from participative education to lecture-style teaching. The individuals Sutherland met noted in particular the relevance of interaction in the French classroom to their access to academic language. Considering that, for two students, this linguistic variety was not legitimate within their family and community settings but was required for their legitimacy as francophones outside these environments, interactions in academic French proved to be a necessary resource for post-secondary language resilience for these students.
In addition, students testified to the importance of a French-language space, as their propensity to use the dominant language with their peers meant that, in the absence of school-organized extracurricular activities, they turned to social media to communicate with their friends. However, they used English mostly, if not exclusively, in the digital socialization space. For these individuals, the school closure during the pandemic entailed the loss of spaces of social interaction relevant to the production and contextualized language reproduction of the various forms of French.
However, unlike a growing number of young people living in a minority setting, those met by Sutherland had access to French-language resources in their families and in their respective communities. They were also among the young people who mobilized extracurricular school activities as a resource for their resilience in general and for their language resilience in particular. In Ontario, parents from a minority background but who use French at home and mobilize French language resources in their interactions with their children noted that their children spoke and read more frequently in French. This seems to have resulted in an improvement in their French vocabulary and a greater ability to move from a situation of translinguistic communication (i.e., the creative mobilization by bi-plurilingual persons of all their linguistic resources to create meaning and communicate a message) to a unilingual situation. Could it be that, by keeping their children away from a socialization space between young people where French is little used (the school hallways, for example), school closures contributed to these students’ linguistic resilience in French?
In a minority context, the surrounding society cannot ensure that students and their families will have sustained access to the language and linguistic resources distributed by the French-language school. Consequently, the French-language school offers great potential as an external resource for students’ language resilience. Under current conditions, it is not able to fully carry out this role in the context of a pandemic or e-learning. Moreover, some anecdotal data suggests that the French-language school contributes negatively to the language resilience of some students. Thus, there is still much to be learned about the interaction between the school and students’ other language ecology systems, and about the contribution of this interaction to short- and long-term language resilience.
References
Bronfenbrenner, U. (1979). The ecology of human development: Experiments by nature and design. Harvard University Press, Cambridge.
Cormier, G. (2020). School perspectives and definitions of linguistic identity in a minority environment: How do French-language schools respond to the needs of 21st century students faced with the many social, cultural and demographic changes underway? Éducation et francophonie, 48(1), 53-72. doi.org/10.7202/1070100ar
Gérin-Lajoie, D. (2004). La problématique identitaire et l’école de langue française en Ontario. Francophonies d’Amérique, (18), 171–179. doi.org/10.7202/1005360ar
Heller, M. (1994). Crosswords: Language, education, and ethnicity in French Ontario. Mouton de Gruyter.
Heller, M. (2006). Linguistic minorities and modernity: A sociolinguistic ethnography (2nd ed.). Continuum.
Levasseur, C. (2020). Being multilingual and Francophone: identity representations and positioning of francization students in Vancouver. Éducation et francophonie, 48(1), 93-121. doi.org/10.7202/1070102ar
Liboy, M.-G., & Patouma, J. (2021). L’école francophone en milieu minoritaire est-elle apte à intégrer les élèves immigrants et réfugiés récemment arrivés au pays? Canadian Ethnic Studies Journal, 53(2), 23-40.
Sutherland, H. (2022). De l’insécurité linguistique à la résilience linguistique : le rôle de l’école de langue française dans la formation de la résilience linguistique des adolescents. [Master’s thesis, University of Ottawa]. ResearchuO. https://ruor.uottawa.ca/handle/10393/43860
Vaillancourt, T., Beauchamp, M., et al. (2021). Children and schools during COVID-19 and beyond: Engagement and connection through opportunity. Royal Society of Canada. https://rsc-src.ca/sites/default/files/C%26S%20PB_EN.pdf
Ungar, M. (2018). Systemic resilience: Principles and processes for a science of change in contexts of adversity. Ecology and Society, 23(4). doi.org/10.5751/ES-10385-230434
Photo: iStock
First published in Education Canada, April 20231 Gauvin-Lepage and Lefebvre (2010) focus their research on family resilience. In this context, internal resources belong to the family while external resources are located in the systems around them.
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