Editor’s note: This perspective discusses school safety and crimes that take place on school grounds. School principals play a critical role in maintaining school safety and mitigating threats of violence and other crises. At the same time, in North Carolina, reports of crime and violence in public schools decreased during the 2024-25 school year, according to an annual report from the Department of Public Instruction (DPI). That report shows that nearly 80% of schools had five or fewer acts of reportable criminal offenses last year.
The call comes in before the school day has fully begun.
A parent is frantic. A teacher is shaken. Something has happened, and the details are incomplete. The questions come quickly. What do we do? What happens next? In a school crisis, time does not slow down just because you need more of it. As a principal, everyone is looking to you, and decisions must be made, ready or not.
Five years ago, during the 2021-2022 school year, I stepped into a Central Office role after 11 years as a school-based administrator. Having just left the principalship, I was determined to support new principals as they navigated their first year. I thought I knew exactly what they needed: practical advice, reassurance, and lessons learned from experience.
But it did not take long to realize something had changed. The challenges principals faced in the early post-pandemic years were not just more intense; they were different. Crises were more frequent, more complex, and more emotionally charged than what I had experienced as a principal. Many school leaders were being asked to navigate these moments without the preparation or support they truly needed.
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That realization led me to study how elementary principals in Title I schools experience crisis leadership — not just how they respond in the moment — but how they learn and grow afterward.
Through my dissertation research, I interviewed five principals who had each navigated crises they identified as defining moments in their schools. Across vastly different situations, their stories revealed three recurring patterns that should shape how we prepare and support school leaders.
1. Principals entered the role underprepared for crisis leadership.
Every participant had completed administrator licensure and could speak fluently about curriculum, evaluation, and managing a school. But when faced with bomb threats, volatile safety situations, community trauma, medical emergencies, and the ongoing pressures common in high-poverty communities, they described a preparation gap, not a personal failing.
Several principals said their crisis training was minimal or nonexistent. Others recalled learning essential protocols through hallway conversations and borrowed experience rather than intentional preparation. Their stories point to a system where principals step into high-stakes crisis roles long before they receive the training those roles require.
So they did what principals do. They figured it out in real time.
Crisis leadership rarely begins with someone announcing, “This is a crisis.” It begins with action under uncertainty, making decisions before the full picture is visible and stabilizing situations before they even have a name.
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2. Crisis decision-making is fast and full of uncertainty.
In these stories, there was rarely time for consultation. Principals described making high-stakes decisions quickly while managing student needs, staff emotions, and community expectations.
One principal explained that in a crisis, you do not have the luxury of time. Another recalled realizing she was the only person expected to decide what happened next. A principal can be surrounded by people and still feel alone because the responsibility is singular.
Many principals said they only recognized the event as a crisis afterward. In real time, there was no pause for reflection, only responsibility. Action came first. Meaning came later.
In Title I settings, that pressure intensifies. Limited staffing, inconsistent access to mental health supports, and resource constraints often turn “best practice” into “best you can do.”
3. Reflection is valuable, yet difficult to achieve.
Three practical moves could shift the landscape:
- Administrator preparation programs should integrate explicit crisis leadership learning, including decision-making under pressure, crisis communication, and the emotional labor of leading through uncertainty.
- Districts should protect time for structured post-crisis debriefing that captures lessons learned and provides meaningful support.
- Peer learning networks and wellness supports for principals should be standard, not optional.
Principals are already doing the work. They are making impossible calls, keeping students safe, and holding school communities together in moments most people never see.
The question is whether North Carolina will match that reality with preparation and support so that when the crisis ends, the learning does not.
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